


Destined to Repeat It

by Bonehammer



Series: Destined to Repeat it [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Good Slytherins, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 17:25:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19089661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonehammer/pseuds/Bonehammer
Summary: Warning: Character death in the first chapter.With the wealth of "redo" fics out there, it was just a matter of time before something like this happened... I was spurred from Viridian/Star'Kan's renowned story, "Nightmares of Future Past", to the point that this could be considered the fanfiction of a fanfiction: What if Harry's Second Coming had gone to the dogs?Story originally published on FanFictionNet.Many thanks to the original beta, Gryffinpuff. Any errors still left are of my own making.





	1. Wake up Dead Man

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Character death in the first chapter.
> 
> With the wealth of "redo" fics out there, it was just a matter of time before something like this happened... I was spurred from Viridian/Star'Kan's renowned story, "Nightmares of Future Past", to the point that this could be considered the fanfiction of a fanfiction: What if Harry's Second Coming had gone to the dogs?
> 
> Story originally published on FanFictionNet.
> 
> Many thanks to the original beta, Gryffinpuff. Any errors still left are of my own making.

" _And so I sent some men to fight_

_And one came back at dead of night_

_Said he'd seen my enemy_

_Said he looked just like me…_

… _I'm not calling for a second chance_

_I'm screaming at the top of my voice_

_Give me reason, but don't give me choice_

_Cause I'll just make the same mistake again"_

JAMES BLUNT, _Same Mistake_

* * *

The intruder appeared out of nowhere, a shadow among the shadows in the farthest, darkest corner, and scanned the surroundings with a wary look. The room was just as he knew it would be: in the background, a heap of broken toys that had once belonged to the privileged child, and signs of the impending departure in full view. The trunk already prepared for next day's departure lay at the bedfoot; the train ticket was underneath the sellotaped glasses and the cage, opened, empty, on top of the wardrobe. The window was ajar and a gentle draft was blowing the curtains – Hedwig must be out, hunting. A waning moon drowned the room in peaceful blue light and even the dust over the furniture looked like fallen snow.

A chill that had nothing to do with the late summer night ran along his naked spine and the newcomer moseyed forward, picking up clothes from the floor: a baggy, faded tee-shirt and a pair of threadbare blue jeans that had been turned up at least four times. They dangled to perfection from his scrawny frame; the diet at his last abode hadn't been any richer than at the Dursleys'.

His target, the source of all his troubles, was having a less than restful sleep in a bed too big for him: at times, a sudden movement would displace the bedsheets or a moan escape his lips. The intruder grimaced: this had been, after all, the room reserved for damaged goods, and the Boy Who Lived fitted that description perfectly.

Harry had been thrashing around for quite some time and was muttering something unintelligible, when the visitor checked the cracked alarm clock that Dudley had flung across the bedroom once and decided there was no point in dawdling any longer. He turned on the wobbling table lamp.

The sleeping Harry bolted up from the bed, at once reaching for the wand under his pillow. His hands came up empty, so he stared at the intruder, blinking like a startled owl, taking in the scar, the glasses, the messy hair…

…and panic filled his wide green eyes as realization dawned on him.

"No," he breathed, sitting upright. "It can't be."

"And yet, it is," Newcomer Harry whispered, holding high the holly and phoenix feather wand. "Either you keep quiet and listen to me, or I cast _Morsmordre_ and every Auror on strength tonight Apparates to this room."

"Then we'd _both_ be in trouble."

"No, _you_ would. I'd just get back a minute earlier. You know how it works."

"Speak your piece, then," First Harry said flatly.

"All right," the newcomer said, lowering the wand somewhat. "Where do I even start?.. Ah, good news first: you're going to wipe the floor with Voldemort. Right after the Tournament. He'll never know what hit him, the old sod."

First Harry grinned. "I _knew_ it. I have it all figured out, I'm not going to…"

"Yeah, yeah," the other butted in. "But then it's going to get to your head, success. Without Voldemort to worry about and a lot of spare time on your hands, you'll start thinking, what about all those wannabe Snatchers? What about those who were prepared to take the Dark Mark, but missed the train? You started dealing with them as well, but – surprise – they gave as good as they got, someone would stick up for them, and pretty soon it was all-out war, only it was in _my_ name that people were cursing and burning and..."

Second Harry paused, his mouth dry, realizing he'd unconsciously switched to first person, which just… felt right. It _was_ right; the memories of the war belonged to him, not to the boy huddling himself on the bed.

"I'd never... I won't _let_ it be like this…"

"Yeah, I know. Just consider, how would I be here then, and why?"

"You wouldn't," First Harry conceded. "Then… how?…"

"By the time you – I – by the time we came round, some of our best friends had died. So we stepped in front of a Dementor, leaving behind an empty shell of a body and a full Pensieve. A smart witch and a reformed Death Eater put everything back together again… and here I am."

First Harry's raised his head; there was a feverish glint in his eyes. "But – now – now you've _told_ me, see? This has changed _everything._ "

The other one shook his head slowly, as if dealing with a stubborn child. " _Nothing_ has changedyet. I'm still here, ain't I?... The- _fuck_!"

Without a warning, First Harry lunged at him headlong, and they went down in a tangle of elbows and knuckles. There was a hissed swear and a sharp intake of breath as he grabbed the other one's hand in a vicelike grip, trying to pry the wand out of his grasp.

It was a funny-looking brawl, and yet deadly, like a pair of starved poodles fighting over a bone. First Harry was small and undernourished; the other was small, undernourished _and_ still giddy from having been stretched over twenty years' time in the wrong direction. He was soon lying on his back, with the weight of the other pinning him to the floor.

"Sorry, mate. Thank you for the heads up... but I can't risk you running around," First Harry apologized, pointing the reconquered wand at the other's chest.

"Forgot... we ever were... this desperate," the other wheezed.

"Nothing personal," First Harry replied. But even as he still leaned over his opponent, his head kept lolling forward and he couldn't keep a steady grip on the wand. His slack hand dropped the stick, he turned it with its palm up and saw the dark wood splinter, smaller than a rose thorn, embedded in the ball of his thumb.

"What have you _done_ …?"

"Dart... frog poison," Second Harry said, as if through a lump in his throat.

"You, you _swine,_ you little _shit_ …"

"...I was supposed to do it while you were asleep but I just _couldn't_ do it," Second Harry said in one breath. "I wanted to talk you out of it… could've gone either way if you just had _listened_!"

"But why... why would you...?"

"Wouldn't you? _You_ hadn't screwed up yet, _you_ didn't have to live with it!"

First Harry snorted. "It would change nothing..." he said, throwing second Harry's words back at him. "…after all you… are… still… _here_..." Breathing raggedly, he slid off the body of his opponent and onto the carpeted floor, as if in slow motion. His eyes went wide.

"...fucked up," he whispered.

"Sorry?" Second Harry said incongruously, unsure whether that had been a statement, an apology or an insult. But the other boy couldn't talk anymore.

Harry picked himself and cradled the limp body; and when his former self finally stopped breathing, he felt something inside him die as well. He thought of all the lives that were being saved, of the books spared from burning, of the hate that wouldn't breed; it didn't help. Harry inspired only pity, now he had rescued him from the inhuman messiah he would become, and damned himself along the way.

His eyes were itching and he squeezed them tight. Served him right for wanting to give his former self a chance: the decision had never been his to make.

He wrapped the body in the threadbare sheets, draped the burden around his shoulders, and went down to the kitchen as quietly as he could. The bundle weighed nothing, but he wasn't strong and the brief fight had drained him of his last reserves of energy. His destination was four miles away, he couldn't do any magic, and Uncle Vernon was snoring just two doors down. That was a pretty bleak situation, even for Harry Potter.

He left via the back garden. A large black dustbin bag covered the sheets and he looked like walking garbage himself in his oversized clothes. There was a good thing about Little Whinging: the neighbourhood was early to bed and early to rise and no one was bound to wander around at night and stumble onto an eleven-year old boy carrying a sack as heavy as he was. The streets were empty, and if Arabella Figg's cats saw him slogging off with his unusual luggage, they saw fit not to pass the word around.

* * *

Harry crouched among the tall reeds, catching his breath. It was really late: the waning moon was playing hide'n'seek behind the trees growing on the far bank of the reservoir.

The body at his feet, free of its drapings, was staring blindly at the sky as well. The situation called for something appropriate to be said, but he couldn't come up with anything.

Perhaps it was excessive, to feel as bad as he did. In a sense, he had not _killed any_ one, merely rescheduled his own suicide twenty years earlier. And there he was, Harry Potter indeed, packing a pulse and all, right? It was just… unsettling that the proof of the contrary lay right at his feet; it called for quite a bit of doublethink.

The thin body, weighed with a cast iron piggy bank in a pocket, a Grunnings multi-tool in the other and a heavy Clulite fastened to his wrist, slid below the surface as if diving of its own accord. Ripples marred the glasslike stillness of the reservoir as the _corpus delicti_ vanished, and Harry shivered like he had been the one diving into the cool water. His hand went unconsciously to his neck, as if to tug at something that was threatening to choke him, but he stopped: that was yet to happen, maybe even not to happen at all, if he played his cards right.

And if he didn't, he, too, would disappear unceremoniously, replaced by another Harry that would make good on his own mistakes.

A nightmarish vision floated suddenly before his eyes: the reservoir filled with scrawny bodies, all alike, and barely covered by a few feet of water. His runaway imagination painted an endless line of time-travelling Harrys being disposed of, their corpses overflowing from the reservoir, flanking the course of the Hogwarts Express like a sandbag trench, stacked capital-high in the Room of Requirement, until their collective mass would cause the cliff under the castle to collapse and crumble into the lake…

_Enough._

He shook his head to get rid of that last disturbing image, and focused. He had tried to no avail to pass the burden onto his predecessor, now it was the time to grin and bear it. He wouldn't force another Harry Potter, another whole universe, to retread the same rut again because of his mistake.

* * *

_Next:_

(9+ ¾)ⁿ


	2. The Song Remains the Same

 " _Like a beast with his horn_

_I have torn everyone who reached out for me_

_But I swear by this song_

_And by all that I have done wrong_

_I will make it all up to thee"_

LEONARD COHEN, _Bird on a Wire_

* * *

At seven, Uncle Vernon started banging on the door like a mad blacksmith.

"Come out, boy! Time to make breakfast!"

Two hours of sleep weren't much even in the best of conditions, and Harry's bruises had given him hell all night. He crawled out of bed and into the kitchen like a zombie, absently operating the toaster and kettle, and ate two slices of plain bread as the eggs fried.

Even as Dudley prodded him with a fork because the bacon wasn't ready fast enough, Harry couldn't help wearing a dazed smile. He was through with being locked in a cupboard or behind a bookshelf, have his head shoved down the birdbath or in a Pensieve; he wouldn't see Spinner's End for the rest of his life, and Number Four for ten months. It was as close to a blessing as he could ever hope for.

The journey to London and the arrival at King's Cross were uneventful; Uncle Vernon grumpily pushed his trolley for him, then, as soon as he was certain that Platform Nine and Three Quarters was nowhere in sight, he scampered away chuckling like a cartoon villain.

Harry just stood there with his exotic luggage, ignoring the funny looks he was getting from the Muggle commuters. The previous time, he had got quite a laugh out of the Dursleys, pushing his trolley at a breakneck speed down the platform and disappearing through the barrier, but he exercised restraint this time; he had to meet the Weasleys properly.

It was easy to spot the wizards among the crowd, now that he knew whom to look for; he recognized Seamus Finnegan and family – his Muggle father looking quite nervous indeed – and the young black lady who kept looking at the ticket, then at the platform numbers, then at the ticket again, absolutely befuddled, must have been Dean Thomas's mother.

An odd disenchantment took hold of Harry: like he was watching again a movie he remembered fondly and discovering everyone was dressed funny, and the acting was not that good, and the story sounded so much better when its ending was still unknown. He checked himself in the mirror of the photo booth to make sure that the scar was well hidden under the fringe, and that uneasy feeling became even stronger.

But then the Weasley clan walked into King's Cross, and Harry shoved those thoughts aside.

He easily followed the bundle of flaming red hair among the crowd, and emerged from behind a pillar just after the twins had passed the barrier.

"Er… excuse me, ma'am," he said, and found out, to his surprise, that it wasn't difficult to act small and intimidated in the presence of Mrs. Weasley. The stout matron turned, saw the trunk and the owl cage and promptly smiled.

"Hullo, dear. First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too."

Harry looked at Ron and they exchanged smiles; Ron's nervous, drawn, Harry's as wide as he dared. He followed Mrs Weasley's instructions about how to walk through the barrier and soon found himself once more treading the well-worn cobblestones of the Hogwarts Express platform.

He strolled towards the end of the train, recognizing people he remembered greyer, hardened, dead: a Ravenclaw student that Harry had last seen lying, Demented and soulless, in St. Mungo's was having his hair ruffled by his older sister; senior Slytherins stood in a tight-knit group beside the tender, unaware that in six years' time half of them would be wearing the Dark Mark and the rest would be on the run; Neville's toad hopped awkwardly among trolleys and shoes, following his irrepressible need for freedom; Lee Jordan was once more sporting dreadlocks and demonstrating his pet tarantula to a group of shrieking girls. Platform Nine and Three Quarters was a giant puppet show, and Harry was the only one able to make out the strings.

The twins offered, once again, to help him with his luggage; Harry agreed, because every muscle in his back was singing the _Miserere_ after his nightly caper. They spotted the scar on his forehead and only Mrs. Weasley's recall saved Harry from embarrassment, again; they got off the train and he sat in the compartment, hearing them talk about him through the open window. Ginny's silvery voice brought back unpleasant memories and he closed his eyes, swallowing through a suddenly tightened throat.

_If that's what it takes, then yes, Harry, I'll fight you._

It was absurd, really: he ought to have been rather angry at Ron, who had shared his madness, even encouraged him when the increasing estrangement had made his resolution wane; Ginny had just done what was right, and if Ron had followed her example, perhaps he might have come round before too late...

But Harry couldn't hold a grudge against his old friend, not when he had stepped in the way of a curse that was meant for him. Actually, it was so good to see him in one piece that it had taken all of Harry's restraint not to hug him, Hagrid-style, right there on the platform.

The rest of the morning went as scheduled: the Hogwarts Express set off in billows of steam and Ginny ran along it until the end of the platform, waving; Ron came to sit in his compartment; the twins introduced themselves and then left, leaving the two younger boys alone and free to make their acquaintance.

Harry's spirits lifted as the well-known events clicked orderly into place, and not even the inevitable _déjà vu_ , or the sense of acting a part, or the presence of the world's slimiest Animagus in Ron's shirt pocket could dampen the warmth that came from his old friend's proximity. He let those feelings engulf him, fill the cracks in his splintered soul. A few subtle prods during the conversation took care of Ron's fears of inadequacy, and by the time the snack trolley stopped by their compartment, the two boys were cracking jokes and laughing like they had known each other for ages.

Harry felt cocooned in a halo of confidence by then, like he'd guzzled Felix Felicis; there was nothing he couldn't do. Get rid of Voldemort, gain the Slytherins' support, win the Quidditch Cup, reform the Ministry… the world was brimming with opportunities waiting to be picked. Until Harry excused himself to go spend a Knut.

The magical world fared little better than Muggles as far as train facilities were concerned. The lavatory was cleaner than a regular British Railways one and the soap dispenser had a Refilling Charm, but the crampedness and associated discomforts were all there; a loose door kept rattling madly with every jerk and jolt.

Harry was washing his hands in the sink when a movement caught his eye. He wheeled around, and saw his own doom staring back at him with mild green eyes. His knees gave under. Somewhere in his mind he was expecting this; he would _always_ be expecting this. But nowhere in his darkest dreams had he thought that The Boy Who Lived Yet Again would meet his fate on that very same day, and in a stinking train toilet at that.

"Did I really screw up _that_ bad?" he said, when he found his voice again; his mouth was as dry as sand.

The other nodded, with an air of commiseration.

"So – what happened? Failed? Turned Dark? Pulled a Pettigrew?"

The newcomer spoke at last. He sounded grave and thoughtful, or maybe that was how Harry wanted him to sound.

"Do you really want to know?" he said coolly.

"No – not really. Wait – are you going to _curse_ me? In _here_?"

Another curt nod. "Your wand, please."

Harry hesitated, then took the stick out of his sleeve and offered it to the other. The other Harry – the _previous_ other Harry – had been a bit of a prat, and somewhere on the road from Privet Road to the reservoir, he had matured the resolution that, if it came to that, he would take it like a true Gryffindor. Make things easier for his stand-in.

After all it had been already pointed out, at length, that he had a death wish.

He sat down, so as not to make too much noise when his body would fall, wondered if an Elvis joke would be appropriate to break up the pathos, and decided it wasn't.

"Wish you better luck than mine, mate. I – I mean it."

The other just nodded again.

There had to be something more to say. Harry knew he was supposed to feel sorry, but he just couldn't. How can you repent for sins you didn't commit, you don't even know?

That was his last thought as the wand completed its downward flick -

* * *

_Next:_

Several species of small furry animals gathered together in a… train compartment?


	3. Strangers on a Train

" _Feeling rather strange when you're sixteen again_

_Things don't seem the same the past is so plain_

_This future is our future this time's not a game_

_This time you're sixteen again."_

BUZZCOCKS, _Sixteen Again_

* * *

\- and nothing happened. Harry didn't dare to move. His future self stood motionless, wand still pointed at him, as if unsure of what came next…

…and Harry, with his heart thumping like a jackhammer and his lungs labouring, on the verge of passing out from the fear and just because of that, realized.

_Whatever you fear the most._

"Would you mind, mate?…" He stood up, yanked his wand off the other Harry's hand, executed the spell flawlessly.

" _Riddikulus!_ "

CRACK.

Two five-sided cardboard frames popped into existence and squashed his counterpart flat. He took his time to read the caption, printed in golden italic, as the now-bidimensional doppelganger banged helplessly against the frame:

_CHOCOLATE FROGS CARD #987: HARRY POTTER (1980 - ?)_

_Commonly known as 'The Boy Who Lived' after surviving a Killing Curse that resulted in the temporary defeat of You-Know-Who (see Chocolate Frogs Card #976), Harry Potter subsequently tried to fix something that wasn't broken and altered time itself in an ill-devised attempt to make things better for him and his beloved ones. His current whereabouts, temporal location and mental sanity are a favourite subject of discussion for Quibbler contributors._

It was more sarcastic than outright funny, Harry thought, but when your world is running down, you make the best of what's still around.

" _Ha!"_ he cried, waving his wand one last time. The Boggart exploded with a loud crack.

He did his business, tidied himself up as best as he could ("Ever heard of combs, scruffy?" said the mirror over the sink as he checked before leaving) and returned to the compartment.

Ron looked up as the door slid and Harry came in.

"Bibbya fee foabob yoway feah?" he spoke through a mouthful of sponge cake.

"Sorry, mate... I don't speak Cauldron," Harry said with a weak smile.

Ron swallowed the cud and tried again. "Did you see a toad on your way here?"

"No, why?" Harry said, frowning inwardly. He had meant to be back in time for meeting Neville – he was high on the list of people Harry had wronged – but the accident with the Boggart had played havoc with his schedule, not to mention that his knees still seemed to want to bend at the slightest occasion.

"A boy dropped by while you were in the john, he's lost his toad," Ron explained in an uninvolved tone. He proceeded to express his pity for outmoded toad-owners and proposed Harry to watch him turn Scabbers yellow.

Harry nodded enthusiastically as if he was about to jump off his skin at the very idea, but Ron's so-called spell had nothing to do with it: he was going to meet Hermione again.

Right on cue, the door slid open again and Neville's round face appeared only to be immediately eclipsed by a familiar bushel of frizzy hair.

"Has anyone seen a toad?" she enquired. "Neville's lost one…" Even with her best matter-of-fact attitude on, she was still beaming compared to the stern and withdrawn witch Harry had grown accustomed to. Ron's wand was out and she seemed about to speak again, but Harry sprinted up first.

"Neville? Are you Neville _Longbottom_?" he said, and at Neville's timid nod, "Pleased to meet you, Neville. I'm Harry Potter."

Hermione gave a small gasp and her eyes travelled between the two of them. Neville's eyes went wide; his hand was a bit limp when Harry shook it enthusiastically. Not only he seemed shocked at the idea that the Boy Who Lived knew him, but he looked he could have done without the attention. However, he collected his wits enough for a stammered reply.

"My p-pleasure… Harry," he said, sounding a bit like Quirrell.

"Are you really _that_ Harry Potter?" Hermione said, turning to him. "I know all about you – you're in _Modern Magical History_ and _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ and _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century..._ "

"Really?" Harry said as he clasped her hand between his. "Please tell me I don't have my own Chocolate Frogs card, too."

Ron laughed.

"If you do, Harry, I'm still missing you. I'm Ron Weasley, by the way." He stood up, the better to shake hands with the two newcomers; his delight at being on a first-name basis with the Boy Who Lived couldn't have been more evident.

"Want to have a seat? We've got plenty of space and food to share," Harry proposed after they were through with the handclasps.

"Thank you, but we really need to find Trevor," Neville said wistfully. "That's my toad."

And they left to carry on with their quest.

"How did you know him?" Ron asked after they were gone.

Harry shrugged and began the careful construction of his alibi. "Well, I found a..."

The door slid open again. Harry took a deep breath and wished that he wasn't still edgy from the Boggart incident: he'd need all his cool for what was coming.

And sure enough, Draco Malfoy peered in, his cold pale eyes scanning Harry from scar to toe. He was flanked as usual by his two beasts of burden breathing down on him, like an evil Baby Jesus; Harry's wand hand clutched the edge of his T-shirt of its own accord, fingernails digging into the palm through the threadbare fabric. _Don't antagonize the ferret,_ he told himself _. You're only having one stab at it._

"Is it true? They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?" There was already a hint of coldness in his voice, like Harry had failed to live up to some unspoken expectation.

"I am," was Harry's polite reply. "Hey, you're the one from the robe shop. I don't think we have been properly introduced…?"

"My name is Draco Malfoy," the boy announced with an air of importance, holding out his hand. Harry stood up nonchalantly and shook it, and then, as Draco didn't seem in a hurry to mention either Crabbe or Goyle, he gestured towards Ron, pretending not to notice how he had been sitting stiffly during the whole exchange, his flaming red eyebrows bunched up in a frown at the mention of the name Malfoy.

"Meet Ronald Weasley…" Harry said, but Malfoy, who had been ignoring Ron deliberately, cut him in.

"That, I could see for myself," he sneered, and made a show of putting his hands in his pockets again. "Red hair and freckles, a worm-holed wand and Muggle clothes. If my father hadn't told me about the Weasleys, I'd have guessed that a tramp had boarded the Express."

Ron stood up as if he'd been scalded. _Well, so much for appeasement,_ Harry thought, and he stepped in between, verbally if not physically.

"What, haven't you heard of deconstructed clothes, mate? By destroying the commonly accepted definition of fashion, the aesthetic illusion generated by clothing is stripped, bringing attention to the wearer beneath. It's an anti-materialistic, anti-establishment, non-verbal self-assertion." He spread his arms wide, the better to let the others check his chalky shirt and ripped, turned-up jeans with camel humps at the knees, and gratified Draco with a big shit eating grin. "In other words, grunge is the new black, and my _friend_ Ron is the top runner for King of the Prom."

Ron burst out laughing, while Malfoy's nostrils flared; either he had just realized his own _faux pas_ , or Harry had just slipped even lower in his chart. The latter must have been the case, because he said somewhat forcedly:

"We'll see how your fashion statement will sit with the Board of Governors, Potter. My father's on it. Want to sit with us for the rest of the ride? There are some people to whom I'd like to introduce you."

"Not right now, Hogsmeade is less than ten minutes ahead."

"Well, see you at the Sorting then." The boy nodded curtly, beckoned to his minions and left. Harry sat down, frowning. As a first attempt at holding out the hand of friendship, it had been a fiasco, and through no doing of Harry's. How could he reach out to the Slytherins without alienating anyone else in the process?

"So that's the young Malfoy," Ron muttered as he sat down again. "You've met him before?"

Harry explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.

"It adds up. I've heard of his family," Ron continued. "They're into Dark magic up to their eyes, but they always managed to get away with it… so far. His father, Lucius, crawled back after You-Know-Who was defeated, claimed he'd been Imperius'd all along, and he's been a big name with the Ministry ever since. Officers who have a run-in with him have a history of being transferred to the Hebrides, Dad says."

Harry shook his head. "I dunno, Ron." He mocked Draco's upper-class inflection: " _'There are some people to whom I'd like to introduce you.'_ Sure, the boy needs to loosen up some, and to lay off the bleach before he vanishes altogether, but he's _eleven_! How dangerous can he be?"

"Hmm," Ron commented. Perhaps he was going to say more, but Hermione came into their compartment again, complaining that people were running in the corridors, and that ended the discussion.

At last the Hogwarts Express came to a halt alongside a tiny, dusky platform; they dismounted and followed Hagrid to the lake shore under the darkening sky, taking in their first sight of Hogwarts at the end of the rise. Even Harry felt his eyes dampen at the sight of the castle in its pristine state, with its spires and battlements and lights reflected by the surface of the lake. On Hagrid's orders, they boarded the boats; once again, Harry and Ron were rejoined by Hermione and Neville.

"Hello there. Did you find Trevor?"

"No," Neville sniffed. "He keeps running away from me."

There wasn't much to say after that, and they kept silent for the rest of the journey.

The prow of their boats came to a scraping halt against a pebbly shore and the first-year disembarked, a flock of black-robed lambs tottering and huddling to each other as Hagrid gave the vessels a last once-over.

"Oi, you there! Is that your toad?"

"TREVOR!"

Ron rolled his eyes and Hermione hid a smile behind her hand as Neville ran off to collect his familiar with a cry of unashamed relief. Then they followed the oscillating glow of Hagrid's lamp further up, until they came out in the open again, on a dewy lawn under a sky pin-cushioned with stars.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?" Hagrid asked before knocking on the massive oak doors.

Neville clung on to Trevor so tightly that the poor beast's bulging eyes looked on the verge of popping out, and the whispering and shuffling ceased immediately as the doors opened and Professor McGonagall appeared on the flight of stairs that lead into Hogwarts.

Her hard eyes seemed to bore into the students as she gave first-years the standard speech; she was wearing the emerald-green robes Harry had always seen on her in the most formal occasions – most of them having been funerals. A surge of shame ran through him, and he bowed his head and stared at the ground.

Finally, McGonagall came back to allow them inside, but not before ghosts had come floating through the wall and above the students, sending a few young hearts into callisthenics. One wondered whether they had a secret arrangement with the Deputy Headmistress, to scare the ickle firsties into behaving, at least for a few minutes; Harry gave himself a shake and marched into Hogwarts together with the other first-years, passing under the high enchanted ceiling and the floating candles on their way to the far side of the Great Hall.

They came to a halt in a disorderly bunch and a few of them jolted as the Sorting Hat burst into song, but Harry, already familiar with enchanted objects, looked at the teachers' High Table instead.

There he was, looking like a tar stain between Dumbledore's flamboyant attire and Quirrell's garish turban: Professor Snape, a bitter enemy that Harry was bound to turn ally before the second rise of Voldemort.

Easier said than done; he could feel the weight of the Potion Master's inscrutable gaze, like a heavy hand keeping him down and at a distance. He sighed and reminded himself that this was not the man he knew; not yet. Not Severed, not the Halved Prince, not the gaunt and unyielding figure that had gone at him relentlessly for the last five years, hammer and tongs, reforging him to the point that Harry loathed his former persona as much as the Dark Lord himself.

And now the time had come to assay the temper. Harry closed his eyes and straightened his back. He was prepared; he would not fail.

Then Hannah Abbott's name was called out loud and everything started anew.

* * *

_Next: throwing leather in the works._


	4. The Worst Joke Ever

_'See, the luck I've had_

_Would make a good man turn bad_

_So please, please, please_

_Let me get what I want this time'_

THE SMITHS, _Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want_

* * *

"Harry Potter?"

" _That_ Harry Potter?"

"Can't be. Harry Potter's, like, five feet ten, and surely he don't need glasses…"

Harry stepped forward to the stool among the whispers and murmurs, stood on the seat and placed the Hat on his head. The well-known little voice, somewhere in his ear, said 'Well, well, famous Harry Potter, eh? So where shall I…'

…and nothing more.

Harry froze stiff, waiting for a word, a hum, a sign of life. Had he damaged the enchanted cap, caused it to enter a time loop itself as it weighed up his deeds, buried in a past that lay years ahead?

Then the Hat spoke again at last, but Harry's relief was short-lived.

'… Harry, Harry, _Harry._ We can't go on meeting like this.'

Harry shivered. 'You saw.'

'I saw the lengths that you will go to achieve your end. Wanting to right one's mistakes, I can understand, but to right them _twice_...'

'As many times as it takes,' Harry hissed, annoyed at the pun. 'You saw what I did. You know what I have to do. With your help or without.'

There was a rush of air, as if the Hat had gasped, and Harry knew this was it; he was going to be denounced as a fraud and a murderer in front of the Great Hall. There was no glossing over what he had done; it was asking too much. Memories floated behind his eyes: his former self, working up his determination and saying, "Sorry, mate. Can't risk you running around"; blackness, whirling; then, "We have reached a parting of the ways", and Dumbledore's blue eyes filled with unfathomable sadness as the man turned away from him; more whirling blackness; and Hermione, gesturing frantically as she strived to drive the point home: "Awful things happened to wizards who meddle with time, Harry!"

'She knew better,' he acknowledged, more to himself than to the Hat, which had gone silent anyway. 'I wish that there had been another way.'

By now Harry had spent even more time being Sorted than Neville Longbottom, and students were starting to murmur, when the little voice returned.

'I know that, just as I know that your regret is heartfelt. Do not fear, Harry Potter. I have been privy to many a secret since Master Godric took me off his head.'

'So… are you going to help me?' Harry asked.

'I'll offer what help I can. Prospecting possibilities is my line of work, and, at a day per year, I'm hardly overburdened.' Harry felt the amusement in the Hat's voice. 'You may come and see me sometimes, when you have a dull moment in the House of…'

"…SLYTHERIN!"

The last word had been spoken out loud.

Harry went cold. He felt numb; he felt betrayed; he felt as if all blood had vacated his body. He willed the Sorting Hat back with all his might, but the little voice remained stubbornly quiet. The silence under the brim seemed to mock him.

The Great Hall had fallen so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Even the Slytherins were so deeply in shock, no one remembered they were supposed to cheer. Suddenly the Hat was lifted from his head in a swoop. He looked up and saw the unreadable expression of Minerva McGonagall.

"Is everything all right, Mr. Potter?" she asked. There was a distinct stiffness to her voice: clearly Harry wasn't the only one expecting the Sorting to go very differently.

 _No, nothing is all right, Professor,_ he wanted to say. _Because I spent the last five years getting ready to sort out the mess I made, and this talking cowhide just had to go and upset the pumpkin cart._

"Would you mind?" a second voice called, making Harry jolt: Lisa Turpin was standing in front of him, obviously waiting for her turn. He stood up, dazed, and looked at the teacher's table.

Professor Dumbledore was stroking his white beard and sent Harry a fleeting smile that was maybe meant to be encouraging, but his bright blue eyes seemed to want to bore into him nonetheless. Hagrid watched him like he was a Thestral with a broken leg that would have to be put down. Quirrell's upper lip was twitching uncontrollably. But it was Snape who upset Harry more.

The man was grinning.

He was not beaming, or even smiling. It was like there were hooks pulling his lips apart.

Harry had seen a grin like that once, when a teacher at school had showed one of his essays to Uncle Vernon, praising Harry's talent for storytelling and his fondness of "uncommon imagery". Uncle Vernon had sat through the meeting, baring his teeth at the appropriate time. Then, once home, he had locked Harry in the cupboard for being a little suck-up.

And Snape had stronger weapons available than a deadbolt on the cupboard door. Harry would be dead by the time anyone figured out something was wrong…

Meanwhile his feet were dragging him to the Slytherin table. It seemed like that end of the Great Hall was receding, taking two steps back for every one Harry managed to put forward, but at the end he was there. Malfoy of all people was standing near the end of the long table and he was the first to greet him, patting him on the back like a long-lost brother. Harry heard a word out of three, but the sense wasn't difficult to figure out:

"Knew you had it in you, Potter… did the right thing… need someone to guide you around… a mentor…"

He made it sound like Harry had come to the Slytherin table after a long, perilous and _willful_ quest. Goyle had been shoved aside to make a place for Harry – the bench was still warm as he sat down, his head buzzing like a beehive.

The other Slytherins introduced themselves very formally, many glancing at the scar on his forehead but no one daring to look him in the eye, because, of course, they _knew_ , and they knew that _he_ knew; you could see it in their slouching stance, hear it in their hesitant voices. Harry had to stand up time and again, stretch across the table to shake limp hands being proffered, exchange forced smiles. Only dumb, oblivious Malfoy kept prattling like nobody's business. Harry had been zoning it out, but he was suddenly aware of it again; he gave the blonde boy a hard glance and rejoyed in seeing his enthusiasm waver.

"You gotta be the world's chattiest windbag," he stated, as nicely as he could – meaning that it came out as just annoyed and not downright snide. Then he froze, because in the shuffle of pats and handshakes, he had suddenly found Theodore Nott's hand in his. He straightened up, fumbling for the wand in his pocket, overcome with the fiery urge to crush the boy's fleshless hand to a pulp, force him to kneel beside the table and administer a gruesome curse on the spot...

_Wait, wait, wait. What am I doing?_

Harry broke contact hastily, leaving Nott with his hand still held out and a pained expression.

He sat down heavily, feeling stupid. _This_ was exactly the attitude that he ought to have lost, and it had taken him less than twenty-four hours away from Spinner's End to regain. True, things had not gone as planned, he had been taken by surprise, but that was hardly an excuse for forgetting _everything_ he knew. Perhaps he ought to write a few hundred lines as penance.

Professor McGonagall shouted "Zabini, Blaise!" and Harry realized he had missed Ron being sorted into Gryffindor, which was probably for the best; he couldn't find it in himself to cheer. Probably, as a Slytherin, he was not even supposed to.

He stole a look at the red and gold table and saw the older Weasleys patting their brother on the shoulder and ruffling his hair. They were less than ten paces away, but they might as well have been on the Moon.

Blaise Zabini sat on the stool for quite a long time, with his eyes closed; the Hat kept frowning and mumbling.

"Sort the ruddy Dago and be done with it, I'm _starving_!" Goyle growled.

Through the grey haze of his misery, Harry heard himself snort.

 _You're going to have a nice surprise when the_ ruddy Dago _gets to be your roommate for seven years, Goyle_.

Suddenly the Hat straightened up.

"RAVENCLAW!" it shouted. The table across Slytherin erupted in a welcoming roar.

… _the hell?_ Harry gagged, as students in blue-trimmed robes stood up and shook hands with their newest member. He looked around, spotting other changes in the House arrangements. Ernie McMillan had been made a Gryffindor and was now sitting right where Harry would be, between Ron and Nearly-Headless Nick; and Terry Boot was a Hufflepuff instead. He hadn't paid attention because he didn't expect the Sorting to go any different; what had gone wrong? Was it somehow his fault?

Had Harry's Sorting tipped a balance between Houses, or had Zabini pleaded with the Hat not to be sent to the same House as Potter?

What consequences might this have?

To boot, Terry and Ernie's turn had been before his, the Hat couldn't know yet... or _could_ it?

Why was this time turning out to be _this_ different, _this_ early? He shook his head, trying to regain some control over his runaway thoughts before his brain overheated.

The rest of the feast proceeded with the slow pace of a rainy Sunday. There were mounds of delicious food and the students were going at it with gusto. Harry took the opportunity to study the girls – not as easy as one might think, because every time he so much as raised his head, he found the entire table staring at him apprehensively.

Pansy Parkinson he knew already, and knew she had set her sights on Malfoy from early on, but not _this_ early… She was sitting two places down, but she didn't miss a beat, giggling when he laughed, pouting when he frowned, smiling when he did. It was a real shame that her performance was wasted: Malfoy was too busy preening to pay her any attention.

Millicent Bulstrode was another old acquaintance; she was loading her plate with enough fodder to feed a Hippogriff, surveying her fellow housemates from under furrowed eyebrows as if daring them to say anything. The other three girls were ciphers; two seemed old friends and were chatting animatedly, the third was picking at her food. She looked as happy about her Sorting as Harry did about his, and he wished he knew her name.

The Bloody Baron made his appearance, but he was not as frivolous as Nearly-Headless Nick, and not half as nice; he took a place at the end of the table and cleared his throat with a rasping sound.

"Fellow students," he announced. "Last year, Slytherin won the House Cup for the sixth time in a row. I expect you to do whatever is necessary to ensure that it remains with us for another year."

His voice was a rusty iron scraping a rock, and the blood stains on his torn clothes glittered like quicksilver. One cursory glance at him, and Malfoy immediately lost any interest both in the food and in the conversation. Harry, deeply grateful for this minor miracle, ate mechanically, not really feeling the taste of anything. Crabbe and Goyle were trying to find out which one of them could hold the largest number of meatballs in his mouth, which didn't help in the slightest.

At last, Dumbledore decided to call it a day; he warned the student body about the Forbidden Forest (some students laughed), casting spells outside classes ( _all_ students laughed) and the third floor corridor (no one laughed), and directed them into a rendition of "Hoggy Warty Hogwarts" that was the musical equivalent of a train wreck. After the song ended – the Weasley twins again dragging out their own performance into a mournful funeral march, which Harry found quite appropriate – students were led off to their dormitories.

* * *

Prefects from the House of the Serpent were freshly instated and, as such, took their role very seriously. The boy looked as if he might be related to the Bloody Baron; he was just as pale, with a long, high forehead and thick eyebrows, and had the same fair eyes that seemed to see right through people. The female Prefect was pretty in a clean-cut way, but she looked afraid that her face might crack if she had smiled. They lead the first-years two abreast, through a maze of damp stone corridors, until they came to a dead end against a bare wall.

" _Ouroboros,_ " the girl spoke. The wall slid forward and then aside, leading them to the Slytherin common room. Harry had seen it once, in his second year, and wasn't looking forward to repeat the experience, much less spend the next years of his life in the Snake Pit.

The Common Room was long and dark, with walls and floor of rough stone, glistening with moisture. Green globes hung from the low ceiling, casting a dim light that didn't reach the farthest corners.

Snape was already in there, waiting for them; straight-backed, imposing and haughty in his overflowing black robes. Something about him looked out of place: then Harry realized why. Unlike the counterpart he had grown accustomed to, the current Snape had two arms, presently crossed over the chest, as if to further distance himself from his fellow humans.

 _Tread carefully around my former self,_ Severed had warned him. _Knowing all too well how you do 'careful', my suggestion is that you play avoidance, pure and simple._

Well, so much for avoidance. The first-years stood quietly around Snape in a half-circle, since he was clearly going to give them a pep-talk. Malfoy looked at ease, even smug; the others, self-conscious and subdued.

Snape scanned them with his bottomless black eyes, and his eyes narrowed when he looked at Harry: he actually shivered, like he was looking at something too gross even for him. Then he regained composure.

"Welcome to your new _home,_ " he began, sounding less than welcoming and not at all homey.

"Over the centuries, the Slytherin House has produced great and powerful wizards and witches; from these walls, hundreds of years of _noble tradition_ are watching you and demanding that you prove yourself _worthy_. As your Head of House, it is my _duty_ to make sure you achieve perfection, from your grades and behaviour to your... – his eyes drifted to Harry's untidy hair – ... _attire_."

So why don't you set an example and wash your hair? Harry thought; what with the mannerism and the topic, he was this close to rolling his eyes at the Potions Master.

"Should you find yourself _unable_ to maintain the required standards, I will obligingly discuss the possibility of you receiving some… _degree_ of education… at an institution other than Hogwarts," Snape went on. From his words, it sounded like quitting Hogwarts was the absolute demotion, complete with rolling drums and torn chevrons. At this point, first-years looked terrified. Even Malfoy was standing on attention, too intimidated to even blink.

"Then again, you _made_ Slytherin, and that has to mean something," Snape continued on a more soothing note. "Which brings me to a crucial point. Before you were Sorted, some kind souls might have told you that all Houses are equally great, equally respectable. That was then, this is now; now you are Slytherins. Expect the cold shoulder from the other Houses and, to a degree, from the teaching staff."

His voice changed again, becoming a loud and pressing rumble. The style had vanished, revealing the unpleasant, passionate teacher Harry knew so well.

"Some people... have no respect for the values our House embodies. Gryffindor students will be particularly zealous and particularly to be feared. To them, your Sorting marked you as liars, cheaters, disciples of the Dark Arts, spawn of evil, and the badge on your chest makes you a target of choice."

A collective growl erupted from the students' throats. Snape's eyes zeroed in on Harry and narrowed as he considered a new and unpleasant development.

"And undoubtedly their hostility will escalate to unprecedented amounts now that the Slytherins, through their renowned deviousness and malice, have secured the famous Harry Potter for themselves."

First-years and Prefects alike looked disapprovingly at Harry, who gritted his teeth. Oh, that had been _wonderful_. Now every point taken from Slytherin, every prank played on one of its student, could and would be pinned on him personally. How was this his fault? The bloody Hat had chosen, and taken away his chances at that!

After Harry had been glared at for a short eternity, Snape gracefully changed the subject.

"Prefects are selected from each House and have authority in matters of discipline, both within and among Houses. Even though they are students, their authority stands right below the teachers'. They can and will detract points and assign detentions if you step out of line. Our new Prefects are fifth-years Miss Fisher and Mr Prewett. I will leave it to them to discuss the finer details of your arrangement." And he set off in a billowing of robes.

Prescott stepped forward, bowed to Snape's receding back and waited for the Head of Slytherin House to disappear outside the Common Room before he started his own drill.

"You probably expect me to show you the ropes, teach you a few social niceties, and all that, right? Well, forget it: I'm not your house-elf. I'm _confident_ that you'll figure out things for yourself soon enough," he said, borrowing heavily from Snape's rhetorics. "You may have already heard about the House Cup at this point. I want it made clear that you are going to take this matter seriously. In so many words _, you will not cost Slytherin House points._ Fail to do so, and I'll make your stay at Hogwarts as unpleasant as possible. Any questions?"

Harry was about to raise his hand, when the little voice spoke.

 _Don't,_ it said. _So you're a Slytherin. Well how about that? What are you going to do, ask out? You swore an oath, remember. It's not about you. It's not –_

But the little voice was right for the wrong reasons. Yes, he had been looking forward to hearing Ron's jokes again, calling Hermione a know-it-all, and watching the twins torment Percy. But he had not gone back for the fun and games; he had grown past it.

They had worked for five years under the assumption that Harry would be sorted into Gryffindor; it was the keystone around which the entire strategy had been devised. Harry didn't know Slytherin dynamics well enough – what Severed had offered on the subject wouldn't fill a page of Cliff's Notes. He was going to fail; he had already failed, before he'd even have a chance of trying. As soon as he was alone, a well-known intruder would sneak up from behind him and the last thing he'd see would be a flash of green light.

A shiver ran down his spine. Perhaps something could be done. Perhaps it wasn't too late. His hand shot up. Prescott turned to him…

Before he could speak, however, something else happened.

* * *

_Next:_

_It's not easy being green_.


	5. The House by the Lake

" _Welcome to your life_

_There's no turning back"_

TEARS FOR FEARS, _Everybody Wants to Rule the World_

* * *

The girl who had been picking at her food all evening suddenly sucked in an impressive amount of air, let out a howl like a werewolf about to change, and burst out crying.

Prescott's contemptuous stance disintegrated into a Neville-like expression; the female Prefect, who had been silent so far, rushed forward and knelt in front of the crying girl, who had her face hidden in her hands and was bawling uncontrollably. The other girls were quietly stepping away as if this could be the expression of something contagious and the boys, pushed back, shuffled towards Prescott. The Prefect nervously ran a hand through his hair.

"It _was_ too good to last."

"What's wrong with her?" Malfoy asked, his face shrunk under the combined effect of a frown and a sneer.

Prescott sighed. "Sometimes, people don't take the Sorting well."

The girl was now sobbing against Prefect Fisher's shoulder and snotting her robes; among the muffled sniffs the only word that could be made out was "Ravenclaw."

"Shhh, shhh, dear. Everything's going to be alright, don't worry…"

"What has she got to complain?" Malfoy argued. "I mean, it's not like she ended up in _Huff!_ …"

The sentence was ended abruptly when Nott elbowed him in the ribs. Draco cast a venomous look at him, but shut up nevertheless.

"Does this happen often?" Harry asked.

Prescott shrugged. "Well – yes. Both my parents' families have been in Hufflepuff since Helga was a lass. They didn't jump for joy when I owled them the news. You boys are all right, aren't you? Because I'm crap at this touchy-feely business." His eyes darted nervously to each of them and everyone, even Harry, nodded coolly.

The girl – her name, it turned out, was Tracey Davis – looked somewhat calmer now (though Harry suspected a nonverbal Cheering Charm as the cause); she apologized for the scene she had caused and rejoined her fellow girls, sniffing a bit. Prefect Fisher Scourgified her wet robes and the seniors left.

First-years ventured to their sleeping quarters and split: girls right, boys left. Their dormitory was another low-vaulted room of unrefined stone, with windows taking the most part of one of the long sides. Judging by how the trunks had been arranged, the house-elves were already privy to the pecking order, because Malfoy's four-poster was between Crabbe and Goyle's; Harry and Nott's beds were separated by the entrance door. There was a stove going in the middle of the room, like in the Gryffindor tower, but the air was dank nonetheless and smelled faintly, like dried sludge. The owl cages were empty, but a thatched carrier was sitting on Nott's trunk and a glass terrarium poised onto Crabbe's bedside table held what had to be the largest and wartiest toad ever.

"Why did you have to hit me?" Draco complained soon as the door closed behind them.

"Because you were about to step in it?" Nott suggested. "Don't worry, it won't happen again." He cast a glance around, his thin face clenched like a squeezed lemon, and set to open the latches on the carrier.

"That's a pretty owl you got, Potter," Goyle commented as Harry moved the empty cage onto the wardrobe. "Saw it on the train."

It was like a mild earthquake. Harry was aware of several things in rapid succession; first of all, Goyle of all people had just paid him a compliment; second, Goyle was susceptible to beauty; third, he had seemed so mundanely sincere.

"Thanks," he replied. "I don't know the first thing about owls but Hagrid, the gamekeeper, chose her for me."

"Hagrid, huh?" Malfoy laughed. "Well, he ought to know about beasts, seeing as he's half one."

Through the corner of his eye Harry saw Nott shake his head. He picked up a slender black cat and climbed into his four poster. Meanwhile, Crabbe had challenged Goyle to a trunk-lifting contest now, complete with grunts and other noises; Harry turned away, stared at his own face reflected into the dark window as bad thoughts revolved ad nauseam in his head.

"What's the matter, Potter? Homesick, already?"

Harry turned around. The smirk on Malfoy's face resembled a grin more than a sneer, but, even so, it was hardly the kind of smile Harry would file under 'friendly'. Or maybe he just hadn't recovered from his banter with Nott.

"Hardly."

"Oh, right. I gathered you live with those Muggle relatives of yours. How are they?"

"I… I don't really want to talk about it."

Malfoy made a face. "Is it really _that_ bad? I should've known," he said, patting Harry's shoulder lightly.

Harry blinked, shocked for the second time in five minutes. First Goyle paid him compliments and now Malfoy had just _apologized_ to him? He lay still, waiting for the world to spin out of his axis and plunge into the Sun. But Malfoy wasn't done yet.

"Fancy a game of Snap?"

"Not really. I'm worn out."

And he was. But after he changed into Dudley's enormous, threadbare pyjamas and climbed to his bed, he saw that the posts under the green velvet canopy were carved in the shape of entwined snakes, and his drowsiness vanished. At least he didn't have to fear slipping into Parseltongue; those days were over, and even then, it only happened with actual snakes. His drowsiness vanished as he lost himself in memories. Not that he had many left: spending months in the gullet of a Dementor did that to you. But seeing faces and places once familiar had stirred up what little he had left, which was mostly unpleasant. As his roommates settled down and started snoring, he lay awake on his bed, and when sleep finally claimed him, he had a nightmare.

_He was trying to reach the third floor and the Stone, but the corridors kept turning in on themselves and getting narrower and darker, until a hand emerged from behind a corner and slammed him with his back against the wall, wandtip painfully propped against his breastbone._

" _Would you mind, mate?"_

_There was a bitter, cold laughter. The scar under the black fringe stood out like a lightning and the flash of green light reflected in the round glasses…_

"Potter! _Potter!_ Wake up, for Merlin's sake!"

Harry sat up mid-scream and found himself nose to nose with Malfoy. His chest was burning. The room was bathed in the cold light of a _Lumos_ charm, and the shadows on the wall jumped with every movement of the wand, like deformed giants.

Harry clutched at his pyjamas, rubbing his aching chest under the flannel. "What the hell have you done to me?"

"Just _Enervate_ , you wouldn't wake up."

"How about you _don't_. Never, _ever_ again, cast a spell on me when I'm sleeping."

"You're welcome. What in Salazar's name were you dreaming about, thrashing like that?"

Harry's jaw clutched. He couldn't say the truth. He couldn't say the truth… he went for the closest thing available.

"I dreamed of Voldemort," he lied.

The reaction wasn't quite what he expected: rather than gasping or looking terrified, his roommates stared at him in awe.

"So… you _saw_ him? How's he like?"

"How dumb are you, Goyle? Do you _want_ me to tell you? So we can scream our lungs out in tune?" Harry shouted.

"Leave him in peace," Malfoy said quickly at the same time. "Potter's got enough on his plate without you pestering him for the Dark Lord's portrait."

But in the meanwhile, the little voice was speaking. _Why not? They're going to find out for themselves soon enough._

Harry let out a sigh. "…It's not like I remember much anyway."

Harry turned around and saw Nott standing between their beds, his familiar looking up from between his bare ankles with yellow startled eyes. "What do you remember?" Nott asked. His eyes were wide and his thin face taut, as if he didn't want to know even if he wanted to know, and Harry somehow remembered he could see Thestrals, too.

Harry was determined not to disappoint him.

"It starts… with my mother screaming. Then I hear this harsh laughter, and an incantation… and see red eyes staring at me. Then everything turns bright green. And the laughter dies - croaks. There is a wheeze that fades to silence… and the cold draft above my head, where the roof used to be."

"By the Mystery," Nott let out. "That's the Killing Curse. How did you ever survive?"

_What makes you think I'd tell you, you little Death Suckler?_

"Enough," Malfoy said, sitting down onto Harry's four-poster.

"You might have heard about my father, Lucius Malfoy," he said. "Back when the Dark Lord was in power, he was put under the Imperius spell and… well. It's been ten years now, he's on the school board, he gives to charity… but the nightmares just won't let go. Just as some people do. The Dark Lord has ruined the lives of many," he concluded, giving Harry a sympathetic look.

Malfoy ended his touching confession and Harry became aware that his jaw was hanging open; he shut it with an audible clack. Of the options at hand – pretending to believe him; curse him to a bloody pulp; burst out crying and hug him like they were on "Surprise, Surprise" – he went for feigning ignorance.

"What do you mean, 'under imperious'?" he asked.

"It's a curse. Makes them do what you want," Crabbe answered; his vocabulary seemed to be made entirely of monosyllables.

"I don't get it." Harry shook his head. "No one put my parents under this 'imperious' curse… They were _killed._ "

"No one can know what passed through the mind of the Dark Lord," Nott offered, and shrugged.

Now what is this about? Harry before he could vent his opinions on the matter, an angry hiss from Fisher outside the door informed them that they had awakened the Prefects, and they only had to keep it up another minute if they wanted to start their career at Hogwarts with a detention.

* * *

The spoon struck the edge of the glass, and the faintest tingle disturbed the silent evening ritual.

_Curse you. Steady your hands._   
_One look at him and you're already undone._   
_How do you expect to survive the next seven years?_

The spoon wobbled, but did not roll. Its content stayed upright. One, two, three, four. Slowly, the tumbler was tilted, its ice-cold content pouring onto the spoon and into the reservoir glass below, until the cube poised atop the spoon dissolved entirely and the liquid in the glass took a milky appearance. The familiar, delicate blend of herbal scents filled the room.

_There._

Severus Snape grabbed the glass, sank in the armchair, and kicked off his boots. House-elves had brought the correspondence, and he sorted it single-handedly as he nursed his nightcap between sips. Job seekers requesting references, some Durmstrang students inquiring about transferring to Hogwarts, a reminder that his subscription to _Acta Magica_ was about to expire. He set all aside, to be dealt with later, with a sigh.

He had been dreading this day for a while, he had steeled himself – or so he thought – for many different outcomes, and yet this had gone beyond anything that he could reasonably expect. A mocking fate had merged the worst of his most fervent hopes and the best of his darkest fears. To sit still and even _smile_ during the damned Sorting and the feast that had followed had required all of his willpower, and walking to the dungeons for his introductory speech, while every fibre in his body screamed at him to run away and never come back, had nearly made him physically sick.

Which, considering the feats he had accomplished and witnessed in the previous part of life, was quite remarkable. He was mellowing.

For starters, the boy had stalled the Hat for so long, Severus had feared it would request a fifth House to be instated since none of the current four were worthy of containing the Potter scion.

Then there had been a few seconds of blank, as everyone dealt with their own shock. In that short time, Severus had made a vow.

He had agreed to bend over backwards, to do violence to himself. He had sworn to see beyond the family name, treat him for how he was and not for who he was, deal with him just like another student.

Because of his debt to Dumbledore.

His duty as the Slytherin's Head of House.

For Lily's sake.

But then Potter had emerged from under the Hat with that dejected stance, like a man whose last hope has died... and the way he had behaved as the seniors greeted him into his new home... already looking at them in disgust, like they were unworthy of kissing the hem of his robe... ready to give them grief in their own House... damn, damn, damn... not again. Not _again_. This time he was going to nip that attitude in the bud, even if he had to resort a pair of red-hot pincers to succeed.

And then, in the dungeons, when he had looked at Potter's accursed features, his father's replica in every little detail, down to the way his hair always looked as if he'd just been slapped… Severus had stared at him, using the glower that had seniors cowering and first years wetting themselves in fear.

And then he had seen _Lily's_ eyes staring back at him.

That was not right. That was not fair.

He had known for a long time that the Boy Who Lived was the spitting image of his late father. All the wizards and witches who had met with him went on at length on how he looked just like James, wasn't that just amazing?  
Severus was not amazed.  
Trust Potter to be just arrogant and prevaricating down to his biochemistry, so as to ignore the laws of genetics and make the boy a _Gemino_ copy of himself, robbing Lily of her only chance to leave a reminder of her mortal existence. Years earlier, Severus had taken it upon himself to be that reminder, by forming his Patronus after hers. And now it had all been for naught. He was unnecessary.

The eyes were the final straw. They could not be unseen. Never again he would remember Lily without being reminded of what he had lost – and how, and to whom.

Was this part of Dumbledore's schemes? A penance to help him come to terms with his past deeds? He didn't consider the Sorting Hat to be immune to the Headmaster's machinations, given that it spent its entire existence in his office, picking up brainwaves.

Severus sat in silence, absent-mindedly rubbing the spot on his left arm where the Dark Mark used to be. He realized he had been gritting his teeth, and stopped. But the noise continued.  
A grinding noise.  
A noise not unlike dragged chains, and he became aware that he had been hearing it for quite some time already.

"Do come in, Baron," he spoke to the empty room.

The Bloody Baron floated through the ceiling, dripping silvery ectoplasm in his wake.

"Good evening, Professor Snape," he rasped.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Severus asked, reigning in his revulsion as he looked at the Baron's translucent face and vowing for the hundredth time that no matter how great his remorse or how gruesome his death, he would not ever 'stay behind', to make such a vulgar display of his inner turmoil.

"One of our new wards has attracted my attention," the Baron explained.

Severus brought a hand to his temple, kneading the beginning of a migraine into submission. Three guesses who. Just his luck, wasn't it?  
"Which one?"

"The one called Potter. His essence is... _unique_. One can sense death all around him. And there is another matter..."

Severus wondered whether the ghost was pulling his leg, pretending not to have made the connection between Potter the Slytherin first-year and Potter the Youngest Hero of All Time. Then again, ghosts were, for the most part, lost in their own world. The Baron, a man whose life and death had revolved around a disproportionate sense of duty, made a welcome exception, as he was invaluable in reigning in Peeves' excesses and keeping an eye on the most boisterous students. But Severus was not in the mood for discussing Potter's peculiarities, not tonight when his own old wounds were bleeding raw.

"How _fascinating_ ," he sneered. "Care to elaborate on that?"

The Baron sensed the sarcasm – not that it would take much, Severus's voice was dripping with it – and raised his eyebrows, which made his sunken eyes seem even crazier, "Surely you do not think it normal, Professor?"

Severus sighed. "'The one called Potter', your Lordship, is the Boy-Who-Lived. Surely you would remember that? He... survived the Killing Curse, no one knows how. Hence it is not unexpected that you'd 'sense death all around him', Baron. In fact I'd be surprised to the contrary."

"Ah. You must forgive me." The Baron's monotone did not carry any sign of embarrassment. "It is difficult for someone in my condition to keep up with... the news."

"I understand," Severus said through gritted teeth. Then why _the hell_ had the Baron put himself into the condition in the first place? It was not like anyone had asked him on bent knee to become the resident ghost and hover around the castle, scaring the youngest pupils and pestering teachers about nobody's business. In the interest of further cooperation, he regained a civil tone.

"Now, regarding the other matter you were telling me...?"

"What caught my attention makes perfect sense in the light of your explanation; no need to pursue the matter further. I apologize for wasting your precious time." With a nod, the Baron disappeared through the ceiling.

Well, well, well. An iteration of Potter's uniqueness, and a subtle hint at his own mortality. Severus downed the contents of his glass in a swig and shook his head wildly. Perhaps he could prepare himself another absinthe, before the alcohol worked its double-edged magic on his troubled mind and his dexterity.

* * *

The Baron glided, absently, up the stairs leading to the North tower, spooking students and portraits alike. So the first-year with the spectacles was a special case. The 'Boy-Who-Lived' moniker wasn't entirely new to him. He remembered some past upheaval, a great, raucous celebration in the castle... the end of a war, wasn't it?

The trouble was, there was _always_ a war. The end of one usually brought on the beginning of another. There had been one earlier than the one Snape had mentioned, even greater and bloodier, when many portraits of young promising wizards in drab field robes had been hung around the castle, and another equally great and bloody before that. But all wars blended into one after a few decades, let alone five centuries. Living wizards didn't enjoy his sense of perspective; the latest conflict always occupied their narrow viewpoint entirely, and they expected everyone else to be just as obsessed.

They were unable to take a step back and consider the greater tapestry.

As he pondered the new events, his incorporeal body went through routines of its own. A living man would have drummed his fingers or paced a corridor; he shook his chains and growled.

After the performance, he haunted an unused classroom on the fourth floor, recapitulating what he knew. The Potter boy was a product of the latest conflict – already a survivor, at eleven. That alone might account entirely for his unique ethereal appearance, or not – but what about the _other_ unique essence he had noticed, what about the radiance of death hidden at its core, and what about the connection it seemed to have with Potter's?

The Head of Slytherin House did not want to hear his advice on either, that much was clear.

He would have to take the matter, figuratively, into his hands.

* * *

_Next:_

_They pray with snake_ s.


	6. They Pray with Snakes

" _It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,_

_Where danger is double and pleasures are few..."_

MERLE TRAVIS, _Dark as a Dungeon_

* * *

\- Poke! -

\- Poke! -

\- Poke! Poke! Poke! -

Dragged out of sleep but not quite awake, Harry curled into a ball, trying to squeeze out the cold that had seeped under the blankets and into his bones. What a nightmare: he had been sorted into Slytherin and his successor had _Avada Kedavra_ 'd him in the dungeons _._ There was Malfoy, overjoyed at the prospect of having a Boy Who Lived all to himself, to impress and indoctrinate. He'd need to tell Hermione, she always liked to go all Sigmund Freud about his dreams…

He awoke completely, opened his eyes and froze, a scream fighting for a way out of his clenched throat: his nightmare had followed him into reality and a green venomous light filled his sight, flooding the entire room in the signature colour of the Killing Curse.

As he lay paralysed in the bed, crumpling the sheets with white-knuckled fists, something poked him in the shins again. Then a voice jeered: "Poor Potter here seems to have suffered a cardiac. Know any good eulogies, Theo?"

"None," was the grunted reply, "Just a few curses for those who feel gabby at six in the morning."

Harry collected his wits, blinked the sleep stuff out of his eyes. They were under the lake; of course the light would be greenish, what with the algae growing on the windows. This was no dream; he had returned.

And he really was in Slytherin now.

He let out a quivering sigh as the last tatters of the dream dissipated. How long would it take, before another voyager from the future arrived for real to rectify the mistake? If only he could undo the Sorting... fat chance of that...

_Wait. I'm an idiot._

If he could not renege his House placement, then neither could his substitute. So this particular horse had bolted by now. If no one had travelled from the future yet, it meant that success was still an option.

The invisible weight slid off his chest and he sat up with renewed enthusiasm, the world again a bubbling cauldron overflowing with opportunities.

"Come and take a look, Potter. Isn't it just _beautiful?_ "

Harry jumped out of bed, but his feet entangled into the bedsheets and the gesture was less athletic than it ought to be. He joined his Housemate in front of the windows. Green really didn't suit Malfoy: his skin, usually pale, was the colour of dried seaweed.

But the view _was_ beautiful, at least for people who didn't suffer from recurrent green-tinted nightmares. The windows all faced the lake from underneath, and every now and then a droplet of water would ooze from the putty around the windows, like a silvery pearl. As they stood watching, a Grindylow swam by, pulling faces as it went.

Malfoy pranced away from the windows, slapping Harry's butt on the way out. "Come on, boys!" he chimed, prodding with his wand the mounds of blankets. "Time for breakfast!"

Malfoy was clearly an early bird, and Harry sort of liked bright and early himself, but the others were not morning people. When Nott finally crept out of the blankets, he was yawning like a Manticore. It took some time and a few Stinging Hexes to wake up Goyle, and although Crabbe spent a reasonable amount of time in the bathroom, no one could hear the water running; but finally, they were dressed up and ready to go.

Harry would have dashed up the stairs as soon as he was ready, but Malfoy had already put himself on top of the pecking order and insisted that they had to prove themselves by marching up to the Hall an in orderly group, not in dribs and drabs, "like toad farts from the bottom of a pond".  
Even Harry found himself at a loss for arguments when confronted with such powerful rhetoric.

Besides, he was not at all familiar with this part of the castle and unsure that he would find his way back all by himself, not after he had come down wrapped in his personal cloud of gloom.

He checked his watch as they crossed a narrow corridor; they were still early. He could drop by the Gryffindor table and spend some time there. Chat up to Ron and Hermione and Neville, pretend he hadn't noticed how the two Houses looked daggers at each other…

He bumped into Malfoy, who had stopped all of a sudden, and Crabbengoyle piled into him in turn.

"What's up?"

"I don't think this is the same corridor we took yesterday," Malfoy replied, in a hesitant tone that wasn't quite him.

"You got _lost_?" Harry protested. "We're barely out of the door!"

"This place changes all the time, Potter. Takes a while to get used to," Nott explained, not without a faint trace of disdain for Harry's lack of understanding of the very basics of wizardry. Harry turned, a cutting reply at the ready, and _saw_.

A rush of air, a swirl of robes behind them. His past lives had not been spent in vain and Harry reacted with consummate reflexes, turning and drawing, but he did not have a clear target, and Malfoy's lumbering minions were in his line of sight. Nott looked at him and went white, and then several voices boomed in perfect unison:

" _Petrificus_ _Totalis!_ "

Harry's arms mutinied, as did his legs. The room somersaulted around him. The floor soared to meet him head-on, in an adrenaline-induced slow motion; he could count the little balls of fluff in the cracks between the stones and calculate which tile would take credit for his impending broken nose.

A thousand firecrackers lit in his skull as he touched down. One lens of his glasses popped out of its frame; he rolled to one side like a felled tree, and lay still.

 _What for_? Frantically, he scanned the corridor, but for what he could see it was empty. His assailants – _their_ assailants? – had already vanished. Just a prank, apparently, and just for the hell of it – even if the events of the previous evening had seemed to take place in a dense fog, Harry was pretty sure he hadn't mortally offended anyone.

Yet.

 _Petrified, broken nose... this rings a bell._ But there would be no one coming to his rescue: there was nothing he could do, save wait for the spell to wear itself out. Little comfort came from the sight of Draco lying a few feet to his left. He had been luckier than Harry in that he hadn't fallen on his conk, but he was drooling on the floor from a mouth open in stupor, and his eyes wide open seemed to plead for an explanation.

Minutes crawled by, as slow as flowing molasses. Goyle was the first to move, but he had no idea how to cast _Finite_ and the only way that he knew, to speed up the recovery of his frozen companions, was to shake them savagely, by the collar, two at a time: by the time Harry regained sensibility to his limbs, his glasses were askew, his robe ripped, and his hair worse than ever.

"What was that for? What _the hell_ was _that_ for?" Malfoy cried hysterically as soon as he was able to speak. "Snape warned us! It must've been those Weasley twins! Wait until my father hears about it..."

"Don't be a prat, Malfoy. We're still in the Slytherin quarters, how would they even get in?" Harry said grumpily, his previous enthusiasm all but deflated. "What time is it? My watch has stopped."

Draco checked his own watch and jolted. "We've been lying here for an hour! Hurry!"

Unsurprisingly, they were late. Luckily, the first lesson was History of Magic: Professor Binns barely seemed to notice them as they entered the classroom, muttering apologies, and didn't take points. As Harry sat down, his stomach did the first of that morning's many grumbles.

Harry did not know what to make of it. The most obvious hypothesis put him as the intended target, while his roommates had only been a collateral. They must have come to the same conclusion, because they gave him a wide berth for the rest of the morning, both in the classrooms and in the corridors.

* * *

It was clear before long who their mysterious assailants were: The _glorious tradition_ of the Serpent House apparently required that the newly induced be tested to destruction.

On return from the lessons, they had another ugly surprise: their room had been given a thorough once-over. The chests had been opened, the beds were unmade, the pillows ripped and a layer of feathers covered the floor like freshly fallen snow.

Remembering similar scenes from the past, Harry suspected foul play, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw his trunk had been emptied and upturned – but the precautions taken by his former self had held: the false bottom was still in place, and Harry's most precious possessions, safe.

That gave him some respite. Quirrell – or Snape, or Dumbledore, for that matter – would have been subtler and more efficient.  
What marked the gesture as a prank was the fact that, despite the mess, nothing was damaged beyond the range of a good _Reparo:_ wrinkled robes could be pressed, bedsheets washed and inkwells refilled.

Still...

Harry looked at his dorm mates and saw his own disconcert reflected in their eyes: they exchanged silent, distrustful looks, then started cleaning up at once, in a silence only broken by occasional mutterings when they treaded on each other's feet.

The following days were appalling. Though Harry knew the shortcuts through the castle by heart, he and his roommates were always barely in time for lessons nonetheless. Tripping Jinxes, Sponge-Knees Curses and the occasional _Locomotor Mortis_ started as soon as they were out of their dormitory. Once out of the dungeons, they were left alone; but the morning walk to the first floor looked more and more like an assault course as the days passed.

Loathsome, senseless, infuriating as it might be, bullying was something Harry at least was used to, used to having to watch over his shoulder – first for Dudley and his friends, then for Voldemort's minions, then for the Ministry Aurors and the Magical Armed Forces – but his dormmates were, for all intents and purposes, Death Eaters in training and he did not want to offer tactical advice to them. So they took the only available solution, distancing themselves from Potter – Potter the half-blood, Potter the champion of the Light, the fish out of water, the unknown quantity – and putting up a show of doing their homework in the Common Room, always in the opposite corner from Harry.

The outcome was not in their favour. All the tables were occupied or 'reserved', so they were shuffled to the darkest, draftiest spots. Quills and parchment were "borrowed" and swapped for Zonko's products that exploded, vanished or attacked them. The writing on their homework rearranged itself into nonsense or fell right off the scroll. They were plagued by weird boils, tendrils and antlers, and before long Crabbe was browsing the Common Room's consultation copy of _Curses And Countercurses_ while dangling upside down from the ceiling as Nott, oozing custard from his ears, waited patiently for his turn.

In the days that followed, they were deprived of their names: Harry, unsurprisingly, was addressed by the seniors only as Crackpot, and not much thought was put into turning the others' names into Crap, Nuts and Gargle, either; but some evil genius had turned Malfoy into "Small Fry", a moniker that made Draco seethe and the others chuckle.

By Wednesday, they were all doing their homework huddled together in the dank dormitory. At first, conversation was strictly functional – all that Crabbe said to Harry on the first day was "You're in my light," – but the forced cohabitation was not without effect, and the atmosphere lost its frosty quality after a while.

Apart from Theodore Nott.

Harry thought he would have chosen his quiet detachment over Malfoy's chattering any day, but as it was, it was just grating: it was like they were all beneath his contempt.

The fact that Crabbe and Goyle were beyond _anyone's_ contempt did not help. They were not actually illiterate: in fact, Crabbe had brought along a whole year of _Martin Miggs_ with him, and Goyle at least could tell which side of a textbook was up. But their attitude towards learning was one of civil disobedience. They never read a page ahead of the assignment, they never questioned the most obvious typos, and they often dozed off as they waited for their liege lord to finish his essay, which they would then copy down hastily in a large, heavy, irregular handwriting that wore out quills by the dozen.

And the Erumpent was in the room the whole time.

No one wondered aloud why they returned day after day to a dormitory raided so thoroughly that it took a solid hour of casting and cleaning just to be able to walk inside; or why they were taking turns at dinner so that a pair of them was always standing guard as the others ate – just the one wasn't enough, as they found out the hard way, returning to an unconscious Crabbe lying on the floor, soapsuds coming out of his nostrils with every breath.

No one spoke, even though Malfoy's morning routine grew silent and subdued, and although he spent the evenings writing long letters home, no help seemed to be coming from there. Was Lucius behind the entire business? Was Snape? And weren't senior Slytherins afraid of bringing on bad blood, riling their own? They weren't even being covert about it. Montague could be engrossed in a discussion about the flowering period of ragwort, pull out his wand and aim a Tripping Jinx at a passing-by Harry, and resume the conversation without missing a beat.

And the days passed by. Goyle had his feet bitten bloody when his own slippers sprouted fangs and chased him all around the room; Nott's necktie became alive without a warning and coiled around his neck doing its best rendition of a python; Harry woke up to the clickety-click of his glasses dancing a merry jig on the bedside table, and sported a shiner for the rest of the morning because he had instinctively tried to put them on to see what was happening.

He could not figure out whether the girls were getting the same treatment, but circumstantial evidence came in the form of Tracey Davis having another meltdown on Wednesday evening, when she refused to leave the Great Hall after dinner. Only when Peeves appeared, complete with pillow and nightcap and grinning madly, was she finally convinced to check out.  
After that episode, she stuck to Millicent Bulstrode like a barnacle to a boat.

Paying a visit to the library was a laughable idea and stopping at the Gryffindor table a suicidal one; being separated from the herd led to the harshest jinxing. Only Malfoy could wander alone and remain unscathed – hardly surprising as how his father was on the Board of Governors – but the first time his eagle owl brought cakes from home, three huge seventh-years rounded in on him soon as he left the Great Hall. The sweets were commandeered, and Malfoy, having protested, had to trudge like a toy robot back to the dungeons, where he spent the evening sussing out how to Transfigure his knees back on. After that episode, Malfoy always kept Crabbe and Goyle as close as it was physically possible, and took to opening and consuming his care packages right at the Slytherin table.

Thus Harry could only glance at his former mates from afar: Sean and Dean's friendship had not been affected by the changes, Ron seemed at ease with three roommates out of four, whereas Neville and Hermione hardly raised their eyes from the breakfast and never took part in the chatter: Ernie McMillan was the only one Harry ever saw initiating a conversation with either of them.

With such ongoings, it was hardly surprising that Friday morning found Harry waiting for Hedwig's arrival with bated breath. His spirit sank at the sight of the owl flying in, empty-beaked as usual, and perching on his shoulder for a morsel of bacon and a playful nibble to the ear before returning to her post at the Owlery.

That was hardly unexpected; the joke that went around was that Hagrid could never have Slytherins over for tea… he didn't have a large enough cup to dunk them in.

Harry stirred the porridge glumly: another tie that he had always taken for granted had been severed.

_Speaking of which..._

His "first" Potions class was approaching ominously. Harry sighed again, making Nott's eyebrows raise.

"Lovesick, Potter?" he snickered.

Harry just glared at him from above his glasses.

Handling that first confrontation was something they had rehearsed with care before his departure, but he was unable to evaluate how his new House placement would affect their state of affairs. He had a hunch, however, that things could only get worse: Snape's hatred of him, like the speed of light, was a fixed constant in all known universes.

* * *

The Slytherins had arrived first and were sitting in silence, examining the creepy classroom; the small windows encrusted with the grime of centuries, the burning torches giving away a tawny light, the tall stone benches, caked with curdled spillage; and rows and rows of jars lining the walls, filled with every imaginable filthy thing. There was a lingering smell, half herbalist's, half leper colony.

The door opened with a creak and the Gryffindors entered cautiously, looking around. Malfoy having shared a place with Nott, Harry was alone in his bench and looked up hopefully at the newcomers, but they sat down keeping to their half of the class as if the Green Line had been painted along the floor.

Snape entered from a side door, delivered the entire class a scathing look and slammed the door shut with a wave of his wand, making Neville jolt. By now, most Slytherins had adjusted to the temperature of the dungeons or just wore some extra wadding, but the newcomers were shivering like malarial patients.

Snape took the register, and took pause at reaching Harry's name – "our new - celebrity," he repeated, albeit with a difference. His inflection, his stance, his gaze were directed towards the Gryffindors on the other side of the dungeon. He was rubbing their nose in it for having been unable to _secure famous Harry Potter for themselves_. Then he curled his nose when he read the last line in the Gryffindor registry.

"…and yet another Weasley," he drawled. "What are your parents going to do when they run out of names? _Whistle_?"

Ron's ears flared like traffic lights, but he remained silent. Malfoy snorted, which earned him a twitch of the lip by the Potions Master, like the two were sharing a private joke.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making…" Snape began in a whisper. By the corner of his eye Harry saw that Hermione was already taking notes. He stood still, his hoopoe-feather quill in hand, waiting for the end of the sermon, remembering another time, another Potions class, another teacher...

_The memory from the Pensieve is as clear as icy water._

_The Potions lab is not in the dungeons, it is too cold and damp and overall uncomfortable for Slughorn. Even his office is up near the Ravenclaw Tower, some Head of Slytherin he turned out to be..._

_Snape sits alone at a desk in the far corner, in his ill-fitting second-hand robe, too short to cover the frayed trousers and Muggle shoes. He came prepared, he has read the book cover to cover beforehand; this is his great occasion to a good start with his Head of House..._

_Slughorn does the roll call, stopping at the most prominent surnames, asking the students about their relatives and their health; the tactic is so transparent it's pathetic. Some, like Black, answer evasively, others seem mildly amused. Neither Snape nor Lily are entitled to a friendly chat. The professor launches himself into a brief introduction about the fine art of potioning, then browses the register again._

" _Just a little test, to check the entry level," he says jovially. "Mr. Black, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"_

_Black, who was sprawled in his seat and looking out of the window, goggles like a dazzled owl. Snape's hand is up before he realizes it: that is an easy one, Draught of Living Death; the hyperbolic name has been stuck in his mind since he first browsed the book._

_When it becomes clear that Black does not know the answer, Slughorn just shrugs and chuckles._

" _Never mind, never mind. Mr. Avery - where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"_

_Snape has his hand up again. The Slytherin boy that throws his family name around a lot is equally at a loss, but this does not seem to irritate Slughorn; the professor ignores Snape's silent plea and pops the third question._

" _Mister... ah, Potter, what's the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"_

_So much for lowering one's sights – this is downright ridiculous. It's not even a matter for Potions, it's entry-level Herbology. But Potter does not have the slightest idea. Snape is positively itching now, leaning on his bench, right arm almost devoid of blood, please please pick me pick me me me me..._

_And Potter, slouched in his chair like he was at the pub and not in a school,_ _**shrugs** _ _. To a Hogwarts teacher._

" _I have no idea, Professor." Then, turning towards Snape with a stupid grin on his face: "Though Snivellus seems to know – why don't you ask him?"_

_The laughter is sudden and horrifying and it comes from both sides of the classroom, Gryffindor and Slytherins alike. Even Slughorn is chuckling behind his moustache as he rebuffs, "Now, now, Potter..."_

"Potter!" Snape's brisk tone brought Harry back to the present. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Hermione's hand shot in the air. Harry produced a strangled sound: "None, sir," had nearly escaped his mouth.

"A sleeping potion called the Draught of the Living Death, sir," he offered matter-of-factly. Okay, so the questions were in a different order this time around. Wasn't it weird, how small details could be preserved word by word, and yet be encased in a larger picture that disrupted their meaning altogether? He nearly missed the second volley.

"…where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Harry paused. _In an apothecary,_ or _in the cupboard behind your back_ was a proper answer, but surely Snape wouldn't accept that kind of reply from him, so he went for short and sweet. "Inside the stomach of a goat... sir."

There were dim chortles in the dungeon: Harry's answer must have seemed outlandish to the unwary. Snape killed the hilarity with a single glare.

"The stomach of a goat," he repeated, slowly. "Care to be more specific, Potter?"

Harry blinked. That had to be the right answer, it was the same Snape had given himself. What was he playing at?

"A goat has _four_ stomachs, Potter," Snape finally said, holding out a hand with four fingers extended as if unsure Harry was able to count to such a large number without a visual reference. "Bezoars form preferentially in the first one, also known as rumen, and to the uncultured, as _paunch_."

A few students dared to snort, but these too were petrified by Snape's glare.

"You find this funny, do you? Would you still laugh if your best friend were dying of poisoning while you stood close like a gagging idiot, unable to help?"

That last one came so close to home that Harry felt a shiver run down his spine: Snape definitely had a point there. The Potion Master rounded in on him.

"No uncertainty is allowed in Potions, Potter; a miss is a good as a mile. A successful brew is the result of hours of patient, tidy labour supported by precise knowledge. For your information, a bezoar is a calcified concretion of vegetable matter and it will save you from most poisons. What's the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane…?"

Hermione's hand shot up again, in a kind of Nazi salute.

"…none," Harry replied eagerly.

"…Miss Granger?" Snape concluded, baring uneven teeth in a wolf-like grin.

Hermione was so taken aback that she nearly choked. When she managed to reply, the answer came out in a jumble: "Theyarethesameplantwhichisalsocalledaconiteprofessor."

"Hm. Passable. One point to Gryffindor." Snape grinned. "And one from Slytherin, for speaking out of turn."

Harry had been expecting something of the sort by now, and managed to keep his mouth shut, but the others gave a collective gasp as if the air had been Banished from the dungeon: it was hard to tell which House looked more shocked.

Snape's defiant gaze swept through the whole class: " _Well_? Why aren't you all _copying this down_?"

 _Thanks Merlin for small certainties,_ Harry mused later, as they started chopping roots and stoking fires. Having been played at with the questions stank, but it was something he could live with. In fact, as Snape went, this had been a polite, enjoyable, mutually rewarding exchange. Meanwhile the Potions Master was waxing lyrical about the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs and Neville's cauldron melted with a loud hiss, causing immediate panic. Snape didn't yell at him half as badly as in Harry's memories – although even so, he managed to send Neville on the verge of hysterics – and didn't blame Harry, either because he was already satisfied or because his favourite scapegoat was sitting all by himself at the other end of the classroom from Neville. He _Evanesco_ 'd the spilled potion and ordered Seamus to walk his mate to the Hospital wing.

Harry's classmates, however, were not in a good mood and made sure their disapproval would not go undetected. Nott only turned his eyes significantly as he passed by, but Crabbe gave Harry a solid shove as they filed out of the dungeons, sending him into the wall, and as soon as they were out of earshot of the Gryffindors, Malfoy came face to face with him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Potter?" he spat.

Harry's reply came out in a hiss. "Can't you see for yourself, Small Fry?"

"What have you done to rile Snape that way?"

"I dunno, you seem to best pals, Master Slug Stewer Extraordinaire. Why don't _you_ go and ask him? "

"Are you lot going to move anytime soon?" came Parkinson's annoyed voice from downstairs. "You're blocking the gangway."

After a quick and solitary lunch, he went back to the dormitory (receiving a Stinging Hex in the back along the road), threw his books on the bed and left. Seniors could chuck them into the lake for all he cared: he knew them by heart already.

* * *

He walked out of the castle and towards the edge of the Forest, where Hagrid lived. The giant's wooden, warm, smoky hut would be a pleasant change from the damp expanse of mossy stone that were the dungeons; all considered, the rock cakes would be a small price to pay.

He knocked.

No answer.

"Hagrid? It's me, Harry. Harry Potter. Mind if I come in?"

He knocked again.

"Come on, Hagrid! It's _me_! You gave me an owl for my birthday, I'm not gonna bite you!"

Then he realized that even if Hagrid had wanted to make himself scarce, there was no way he could stop Fang from barking his head off at the presence of an intruder: he looked up and saw no smoke coming out of the chimney.

Well, he really couldn't expect Hagrid to sit around all day, waiting for students to drop by; he was probably deep in the Forest now, cutting wood or collecting unicorn hairs or teaching Aragog how to fetch a stick.

Sighing, he took out a bit of parchment and a pencil and scribbled:

_Hi Hagrid,_

_I dropped by, but you were not home. I would like to come and visit some time, please let me know via Hedwig if it is okay._

_First week has been a riot. My House mates are nice, they remind me of my cousin._

_Greetings,_

_H._

He read it again, and thought it was okay. Not exactly cheerful, but not heavy on the angst either, and not too compromising in case it fell into prying hands. He folded it and slipped it between the door and the frame, then made his way back to the castle, where he was greeted by a fuming Prescott.

"Where have you been?" the Prefect barked. "I've been looking for you all afternoon."

"To my business and back again."

"When a first year loses House points within a week from the start of term, _their_ business become _my_ business. What did I tell you on your very first night here?"

"That we were not to lose House points, yeah," Harry chanted, eager to be done with this. "Listen, I was just a tad too…"

"No, _you_ listen. _Acuphenes,_ " Prescott recited, and pointed his wand.

It was like having nails driven into one's ears with a sledgehammer; Harry brought his hands to his ears and cried out, realising too late that it was the wrong thing to do. The yelp he had produced echoed like a foghorn.

"IT SEEMS YOU HAVE A PROBLEM," Prescott boomed, each syllable an atomic test right inside Harry's head. "A HEARING PROBLEM, PERHAPS. I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER SAYING THAT IF YOU LOST HOUSE POINTS I WOULD MAKE YOUR LIFE AT HOGWARTS MISERABLE. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT, CRACKPOT?"

Harry just nodded, not wanting to speak and add to the torture.

"VERY WELL, WE'LL SEE. _FINITE_."

The ringing in his ears vanished, and Harry slumped to a crouched position, checking himself and surprised that his eardrums weren't bleeding. A part of him was actually complimenting the Prefect for the neat spell, otherwise he would have drawn out his wand and tried the worst he had learned from the Prince.

"I'm not your enemy, you know," Prescott said, making a show of putting his wand away and offering him a hand to pull up. Obviously that was a well-rehearsed routine. "Unless you want me to."

"I'll let you know when there's a vacancy," Harry whispered, refusing Prescott's hand and pulling himself up.

"What?"

But Harry played deaf. Prescott frowned, but seemed to decide that the spell had left his victim a bit delirious, and after scolding Harry for having left without notice, he went about his business.

The trouble, however, was not over. When Harry returned to the relative safety of the dormitory, a particularly angry Goyle confronted him right on the door.

"Where have you been? It was your turn. The room's a mess!"

Carefully, Harry stepped inside. A pair of robes were waltzing across the floor, which could not be seen for the amount of trash on it: it looked like an entire week's worth of notes had been turned into confetti. The coat hangers had been used to make a Calder-like sculpture, swaying and turning gently over the prone and unconscious figure of Crabbe. Goyle's toad had been turned purple and doubled in size, and was squeezed against the glass of its terrarium; Nott's cat, Artemisia, was nowhere in sight.

Three hours later, the room was again fit for living and Harry was lying on the bed, fuming, absently twirling his wand between his fingers. The rest of the space was taken by books such as _How to Irritate Wizards_ , _A Theory of Practical Jokes_ and _The Complete Prewett's Prankster Book (If at All Possible, Include a Hippogriff)_ , courtesy of the Common Room library.

 _What the hell_ , he though. If he was going to go down in flames, let them at least be blazes of glory. He had grown up to tales of his father and Sirius; he had witnessed the best and the worst of the Weasley twins; he had made Umbridge dance the Humiliation Conga till her feet were bleeding. There was no way in Merlin's green realm he was going to let a bunch of robed snakes get the better of him. He took all the books in his arms and chucked them on the floor; he was not going to need them.

"Look, boys, I've had it up to my eyeballs with this hazing thing," he announced. "Is anyone up for a little payback?"

* * *

Severus twirled the chalice, contemplating the flames dancing in the fireplace, a warm green when seen through the liquor swirling in the double-curved glass. The Muggle bastardization of the beverage was a powerful, crude tranquilizer, with all the subtleness of a Stunning Hex and harsher aftereffects; his own creation took away the pain and allowed him to meditate on past events without wanting to Annihilate his brains. Neither green nor silver, it brought to mind, by association, a kaleidoscope of memories – as bittersweet as its taste. Willow leaves; Slytherin banners; the trace of a Killing Curse; bright eyes.

 _Young_ bright eyes.

He had been too harsh, too soon. Perhaps he needn't have worried. The first week had shown promise: James would have never taken such an obvious provocation lying down. Unlike his father, Potter understood the concept of restraint: he had passed the test.

Because it had been a test, not a rouse for rousing's sake. That was something that James would have done if the roles had been reversed.

 _And if I keep telling that to myself, perhaps one day I'll actually believe it. That I could have ever reigned in my worst tendencies, avoided the wrong companies. That I could have won her back. That I could have died a hero's death, mourned by thousands, leaving my old nemesis to live an empty life, with his regrets for sole company_.

Between the two of them, Severus felt he was the one who'd had it worse.  
Depending on one's concept of the afterlife, James was either enjoying Lily's company or unaware of the loss. And he had left a legacy, something that Severus would - could - never do.  
Even in his youth, he had never fallen for what Avery jokingly called "the obsession with succession". He had actually looked forward to ending the bloodline of cursed Tobias Snape. But "voluntary abstinence" sounded very much like "sour grapes" when there was nothing to abstain from.

It would be a subtle revenge, and the achievement of a lifetime, to turn the table on James, to obliterate the Potter traits in the boy – to turn him into an Evans.

* * *

_Next:_

_I'm going to make a cak_ e.


	7. The Green Disease

" _What is Genius? It's fantasy, intuition, good eye and swift performance."_

_MARIO MONICELLI, "My Friends"_

* * *

Malfoy was immediately in on the joke, which meant his two lackeys were also at their disposal, but Nott wouldn't want any of it.

The following morning, indeed, Harry caught him trying to sway Crabbe and Goyle while their lord and liege was in the shower, and it looked as if he was mere minutes away from succeeding.

"Do you think you'll be able to stay at Hogwarts after a stunt like this? Are you going to give up sleep forever after?" he was arguing desperately. "The seniors will have six years' time to pay back, and that's if we're not snapped in two right away. Potter cannot be touched, Boy Who Lived and all that. Malfoy's father is on the Board of Governors. You and me are not so special."

Malfoy's minions were _ehr_ ring and _uhm_ ming, which was as close to having second thoughts as they could get. Harry spoke suddenly, making the three of them start.

"Malfoy will vouch for you. Vince and Greg, I mean. The seniors will buy it... everyone knows you just do whatever he tells you to. And he won't want to spend the rest of his schooldays without his pals."

"That still leaves me out, Potter. Did you just forget I exist, or are you making me the scapegoat on purpose?"

Harry just shrugged, inwardly wishing for Nott to be right - that he would be the one expelled so Harry wouldn't have to be torn in two about him.

"Suppose I run to the Prefects with news of your hatching conspiracy?" Nott hinted rather nastily.

Harry shrugged. "I _suppose_ there's nothing I could do to stop you. I also _suppose_ you plan to give up sleep forever after... since I'd have _seven_ years' time to get even. As you said, I can't be touched, Boy Who Lived and all that."  
Even if it was Nott, Harry felt bad right as he spoke; using the advantage of experience to corner an eleven years old, using his own words against him. Slytherin was definitely rubbing off on him.

Nott suggested that Harry go do something anatomically impossible, and didn't speak to any of them for the rest of the day.

* * *

That evening, the four conspirators were sitting onto Malfoy's bed among crumbs and discarded wrappers, and Harry had to realize he had bitten more than he could chew. He had made up and discarded far-fetched plans that would have worked... maybe... but only with the Marauder's Map, the Invisibility Cloak and the Wizarding Wheezes' warehouse at his disposal.

Malfoy was describing how he would dive-bomb the Common Room with stink pellets if only he could smuggle a broomstick into the dormitory, when a shadow fell on onto the curtains and someone quietly slid them open from the outside.

It was Theodore Nott.

Harry assumed a fighting stance with a swiftness that would have been impressive if he hadn't been chewing on a big bite of a Pumpkin Pastry at the time, which promptly went down the wrong pipe. He gasped, but his throat refused to open, and coughed out what little air he had left.

"He's choking!" yelled the ever-helpful Crabbe and started punching him in the guts, then on the back when Harry, still hacking, curled into a ball. The room was becoming dark and distant when Nott spoke again.

"You lot are hopeless, d'you know that? _Anapneo_."

An orangey lump came rushing out of Harry's nose and rolled onto the floor, followed by Crabbe's toad hopping heavily towards the unexpected treat.

"Thanks," Harry said sincerely, appreciating the dampness of the Slytherin air as he'd never done before. "Handy spell."

Nott shrugged. "You're welcome. A no-brainer, really."

Then he told them about his plan. It was simple, did not require magic beyond their capabilities – none at all, in fact - and sounded absolutely devastating.  
Harry was impressed, but not for the right reasons. Later that evening, as Malfoy took his thirty-minutes evening shower and Crabbe and Goyle fought over the latest _Martin Miggs_ issue, he approached Nott one-on-one for the first time, while he was grooming his cat.

"From 'I won't have any of this' to pranking mastermind. That's a hell of a long road to cover in a day, Theo."

Nott stiffened visibly, his eyes shifting to the wand Harry was absently twirling in his hands. The cat sensed her master's tension and quit purring.

"So what? At least I'll see the seniors eat crow before we're expelled," he replied, with grim satisfaction. "And by 'we', I mean 'me, myself and I'. You're right: Draco will want to keep around his minions."

"But why did you even suggest this... thing? You heard us planning: we were going nowhere."

"Might as well be Kissed for a dragon. You're going to do something dumb eventually, and the seniors will never believe I wasn't in league with you."

Harry frowned. "Why wouldn't they? You hardly ever speak to us lot."

"You have a lot of catching up to do," Nott just replied, and there was no getting anything more out of him after that.

* * *

Harry lay awake in his bed for a long time after everyone had gone to sleep, thinking.

Was it stupid, gambling everything just to get even with the seniors once? Wouldn't their behaviour escalate even further? Ever since his Sorting he felt like he was groping his way in the darkness. Dumbledore had told him once to trust his instincts, but his instincts were suffering from stage fright right now and he was sorry he had even suggested the whole thing.

He didn't trust Nott to keep his mouth shut. He had openly said that he was afraid of being expelled, and the fact that they were following a plan of his would make it even easier for him to scurry to the seniors with horrible stories of how Potter and Malfoy were plotting against the House – or, even better, just Potter: Potter the half-blood, the Muggle-raised, the outsider who wouldn't fit in even with his roommates and had already managed to lose House points in _Potions_ of all classes...

Speaking of Snape, Harry had little doubt of what his reaction would be on apprehending that James Potter's son was up to the same antics as his late father, now that the _happy power_ to decide about his expulsion rested with him at last...

A sudden intuition, shocking and complete, made Harry jolt on the bed as he remembered the incident in its entirety – the flying jalopy, the terrible tree and Ron's Howler. But there was a way out. Oh, the seniors would be mad, Snape would be frothing at the mouth, but they wouldn't be able to do _shit_ about it. Oh, they would think twice about messing with the ickle firsties again.

In his excitement, Harry could hardly wait for the morning. He needed to talk to Malfoy about his idea in private – Nott didn't have to know. And they would finally know where he stood.

Malfoy was puzzled, but answered Harry's questions nonetheless. Yes, of course you could send or receive mail without going to the Owlery: Salazar himself had designed this part of the castle, he knew students would need to conduct their business in private at some point or other.

"So the owls come down the chimney flue, like Santa Claus? Wouldn't they get roasted if the fire is going?"

Malfoy huffed like he had been tried to the very edge of his patience. "Merlin, Potter, I know you went to a Muggle school, but _still_!"

And then he treated Harry to a lesson about fireplace physics.

When a fireplace was on, it sent hot air up the chimney. This air had to be replaced, or it would be sucked back into the room together with all the smoke. Normally the air would draft from fissures in the windows, but in Slytherin the windows had to be sealed shut because the whole place was underwater.

"So here's where the fresh air comes in," Malfoy explained, leading Harry around the corner and in front of a statue. "And the mail, too, if necessary. Satisfied?"

 _Wouldn't you know it, another huge snake head,_ Harry thought; old Salazar had just as much taste in decoration as the average drug lord. This one was a cobra, portrayed rising from the floor with its hood expanded and its mouth, five feet long and three across, wide open. The statue was hollow: cold air was indeed flowing through the gaping reptilian maw, resonating through the bronze with a constant, low-octave whistle.

Harry stood on a chair to get a look inside.

"Pretty tight in here."

"What do you care? You're not an owl."

The floor tiles suddenly became much more interesting than anything Malfoy had to say.

* * *

"Soon," Malfoy had said, and he was as good as his word. The package arrived on Saturday, carried by no less than six large delivery owls, such heavy it was. So far it had been a dull weekend: Hogsmeade trips and Quidditch hadn't started yet, the weather was rotten and there was only so much homework to do, right at the beginning of term. Nott had been counting on this: the seniors were bored stupid and the arrival of such a treat was bound to get noticed. Crabbe and Goyle, large enough to act as a partial deterrent, were ordered to lag behind in the Great Hall, to make things smoother, whereas the three of them – Harry, Nott and Malfoy – carried the package, which was giving away a delicious smell of fresh bakery, back to the dormitory.

They had no soon turned the corner than two seniors were already on their case: half-trolls that Harry knew from the Quidditch pitch, Marcus Flint and Adrian Pucey.

"Ooh, lookee." Pucey clapped his hands in mock delight. "The freshies brought a nice present. Give it here, midgets."

"Come and get it." Malfoy's voice trembled ever so slightly, ruining what otherwise would have been a perfect delivery.

Flint flexed his shoulders. "We're mightier than Merlin compared to you firsties. Give it up before it gets nasty."

"No." Malfoy spoke slowly, like he was talking to an actual troll. "It's from home, and it's for my _friends_. Mother baked it with her own hands."

"Really?" Pucey advanced on them, smacking his lips obscenely. "I know a few things your mother could do with _her own hands_ , Small Fry, and baking's not even on the list."

Flint sniggered. Malfoy, seething, let go of the cake and took out his wand, forgetting that they had agreed to pose only a token resistance.

"Take that back!" he cried. "Or I'll do _things_ to you that..."

Pucey's own wand came out of his pocket like a bolt; Harry followed a very Gryffindorish urge, drawing in turn and leaving Nott alone to wrestle with the huge parcel.

"Take it back, Adrian," said a quiet voice.

The Seeker turned, a comical expression on his coarse features: the female Prefect, Fisher, had drawn out her wand as well, and had it pointed right at Pucey's. It was the longest Harry had ever seen on a witch, a Freudian affair easily thirteen inches and carved in a pattern of oak leaves; it seemed about to spear Pucey right in the hairy ears.

"That was way out of line, Ade," she said softly. "Apologize."

Harry could have married her right there and then.

Caught between two fires, Pucey had no choice but to comply.

"'m sorry," he grunted, although the expression on his face meant anything but. Slowly, Malfoy and Fisher lowered their wands, followed by everyone else. Nott gave out a loud sigh; Harry put his wand back up his sleeve and went to help him, but Fisher was there first: she Levitated the parcel out of Nott's arms and out of their reach with a sly smile.

"That was thoughtful of you lot. Just in time for breakfast. Mmmh, smells wonderful."

"No, you heard. It's Draco's. For us. For _first years_."

"You mean you don't count seniors as friends, Crackpot?" Fisher inquired, and Harry's prospects for marriage rolled over and died. "Tsk, tsk. I'll have none of this attitude."

"But..." Nott broke in.

"Shut up, Nuts. Now, normally such indiscipline would mean lines for the three of you, but because it's Saturday, and you brought cake, I'll pretend I misheard, _for this time only_. Another display of selfishness like this one and it's detention for you lot. Have I made myself clear, Small Fry?"

Malfoy glared at her with the look of a caged dragon. "Perfectly," he gnashed.

"Good. Now go. Don't you have revision to do? End of the year is only eight months away. Chop-chop!"

The first years ruefully watched the victorious trio go away with their booty, manoeuvring awkwardly around the bends. Harry was breathing heavily, like he had just ran a marathon; Malfoy's usually pasty complexion was now beyond the pale; Nott, who hadn't moved a muscle during the entire confrontation, was trembling all over with nervous energy.

They slogged off to their dormitories glumly, passing the three senior students, who had laid their war-prize onto the largest table and were now pigging out with a voluptuousness that would have put Dudley to shame. The cake had been hacked without much ceremony, but still looked mouth-watering, with festoons of cream, multi-colored icing and cherries. Prescott walked in, still in his nightgown and pyjamas, and his eyes went wide at the sight of the dessert.

"Oi! Gwen, you got married?"

"Not to these two, you prat. The freshies brought cake – wanna taste?"

"Do you even need to ask?" Prescott replied as Pucey hastily Conjured a plate and fork.

Soon as they reached their dormitory, first-years collapsed on the floor in a silent dogpile. Nott had his fist in his mouth; Harry was holding his midriff.

"Boys, that was great. That cake won't see it through the morning."

"Mother's a daft hand when it comes to charms," Malfoy boasted. "That Generosity Glamour was tops."

The door opened and Crabbe and Goyle came in, looking, as usual, like a pair of grotesques. They looked beyond themselves with outrage and confusion.

"But that – that was _your_ cake, Draco!"

"And – and – they _eat_ it!"

It was the final straw: Harry went into hysterics. He lay on the floor, breathing raggedly, with tears streaming from the corner of his eyes, and occasionally getting a pat on the back from the others.

And there was more. The seniors had fallen for the bait; they hadn't suspected a thing.

No one of first-years had tattled or let him down.

It was almost like having friends again.

* * *

The first symptoms began an hour later. Flint was sitting with his fellow fifth-years in the warmest spot near the fireplace, when another student broke out:

"For crying out loud, Marcus, you got cooties or what? Stop scratching, it's making me sick."

"Scr… Well, I'll be darned, you're right. I'm itching all over."

"And you're passing it on. Get away from me!" Prescott protested, kicking him and reaching down to scrape his own ankle.

Ten minutes later, most students were in such discomfort that they had taken most of their clothes off, the better to reach the itchy parts. And that was when the second wave of symptoms began. Adrian Pucey was the first rushing to the bathroom, soon followed by more students. But soon the demand for vacant seats and soft paper soon exceeded the offer. Cauldrons and phials had to be put to a novel employment.

What little could be seen and heard of the ongoings defied belief. First-years took it in turns to watch from the keyhole. They had barricaded themselves in, both magically and Muggle-style – although Nott had expressed disbelief that a simple juxtaposition of furniture could stand the wrath of a pranked Prescott.

Harry was lying on his bed, browsing an old issue of _Trends in Transfiguration_ and affecting a bored look.

"Pranked Prefect Prescott. Can you say that fast, Malfoy?"

Malfoy, being himself, just had to overegg the pudding. "Pranked Prefect Prescott, Prefect Prescott pranked... uh... Prefect Prescott pranked by prats properly pestered Potter plenty."

"Showoff."

Malfoy rolled a sock into a ball and threw it at him.

"Hey, can I help it I'm so brilliant?"

Harry promptly caught the wad mid-air and passed it to Crabbe, setting off an impromptu session of broomless Seeking within the room. "You're not brilliant, you're _glossy_. What do you comb your hair with, a trout?"

"How can you joke when there's people out for our blood beyond that door? Soon as they come out of it, it's curtains for us."

Harry made a show of turning the page. "You said you wanted to go out in style. If you can't stand the wait, there's always the third floor corridor to the right."

Nott shivered. "You're hardly funny, Potter."

"Nay, I'm funnier than a barrel of monkeys when I put my heart to it. Shall we go out? It's nearly time." He turned to Nott. "You're going to love what comes next. Trust me."

The furniture was moved out of the way and Malfoy, leading the procession as usual, opened the door onto a world out of reason.

"Harrowing harpies!" he cried. "What's going on in here?"

The common room, usually silent and like a library, was a mess. There were groaning youths lying on the tables, on rows of chairs, on sofas. A crowd of seniors stood in wait sporting various degrees of dishevelment. To the forefront, Prescott wore his robe inside-out, and his shoes were missing. Behind him, Flint, his crew cut glistening with sweat and sticking up like a wig of cropped quills, had tied a House banner around his private parts in Kreacher-like fashion. Adrian Pucey sported angry red scratches on his neck and forearms. The rest of the House didn't fare much better, although it looked like the major symptoms had run their course.

"All right, whose was the brilliant idea?"

"What brilliant idea?" Harry asked, tilting his head to one side.

"You _know_ ," said Fisher coming to the forefront, wrapped in bedsheets like a crazed Vestal. Her hair, usually held in two tight buns to the sides of her head, was now a tousled mane reaching down to her waist.

"What... you... you're telling me that the _cake_ did... this?" Malfoy blurted, mouth and eyes wide open in surprise. But his countenance was starting to crack: Harry could see the sides of his mouth twitching.

Not a minute too soon, an owl came down the Common Room flue and perched on his shoulder. Malfoy untied the parchment from its leg and the owl took off again. Malfoy read under his breath, lips moving quickly, then handed the letter over. Fisher yanked it from his hand and read aloud:

"' _Dear Draco, we just realized there was a terrible mistake. I made Dobby fetch Crystallized Essence of Violet, but he brought back Crystal Violet and I used it in the recipe. By all means DO NOT EAT THE CAKE! If you or some of your friends have already eaten it, go to the infirmary immediately and tell them what happened. I am awfully sorry for the incident. Love, Mother. P.S.: Dobby is ironing his ears as I write. I made sure he used the Linen setting.'_ Well, what can I say? What do we say to that? _"_

There was silence. Fisher, still holding the letter, slowly drew her wand and raised it towards the ceiling. Most other students – even some of those sprawled on the furniture – imitated her.

Harry met her eye with his jaw jutting out. He could hear Nott's quickened breath to his left and see Malfoy's forehead glistening with sweat to his right. He was about to say something in defiance when the spells started to fly.

From the raised sticks came fireworks and loud bangs; senior students launched into applause; confetti were flowing out of many wandtips and falling on the first-years.

"You're certified Slytherin material. Party!"

Prostrate students pulled themselves up or were Levitated out of the way; _Pack_ and _Scourgify_ took care of the mess; female first-years were called out of their dormitory to join the celebration. Trunks that apparently had always contained spare banners or chandeliers turned out to be refrigerated caches of brown glass bottles.

The following hour was a kaleidoscope of faces and speeches. Harry was introduced to a phenomenon that he had never witnessed before – smiling Slytherins. He was congratulated by people that he had only ever seen sneering or looking down at him. A fourth year that had hexed him into a suit of armour just the day before patted him on the back and pushed a Butterbeer in his hand. Seniors smiled and ruffled his hair and claimed that he would surely grow up to great achievements; a pencil-necked boy presented him with a whole year of History of Magic essays, ready to be copied; another one revealed the location of a secret passage to the Great Hall that saved a five minutes' roundabout trip. All around, the atmosphere was like the House had just won the Quidditch Cup. A Slytherin Beater was standing on either side of Nott's, with an arm thrown over his shoulder, and the trio was singing at the top of their lungs,

 _...Cast out the swines of faith untrue_  
_And Slytherin shall stay pure_  
_If Hogwarts means at all to you_  
_If wizards are to endure..._

Harry stood in a corner, still nursing the Butterbeer. He was way too young for it and would have paid the price tomorrow; by good luck was a , someone poked him lightly on the shoulder.  
"Harry Potter, is it? May I have a word with you?"

Harry turned and was faced with a senior with a dark complexion, smooth features, and a hint of moustaches on his upper lip. He wore a turban, a bit like Quirrell's – which worried Harry some – but smaller and black.

"Taran Singh Rahal," the boy said, holding out a hand. Harry, in a Butterbeer-induced haze, took a while to understand that this had to be his name and not some outlandish spell, and held out a hand without realizing he was still clutching the empty bottle. Their handshake was a bit awkward.

"You may have heard this one before, but never the less, congratulations for making it into Slytherin."

Harry shrugged: it was becoming a twitch. "It was – You lot really don't trust Godric's Hat, do you?"

Taran of too many names shrugged in turn. "You heard Snape: _noble tradition_ demanding that you prove yourself _worthy."_

"Yeah," Harry said noncommittedly, wondering where this was heading.

"Speaking of tradition, in Slytherin each first year is assigned to a senior for being tutored."

The haze Harry had been drifting in vanished at once, and he suddenly remembered who he was and what he was there for. The sensation was not unlike a fall from a great height, and he actually jerked. He looked over his shoulder at the Common Room: Flint was lecturing Crabbe and Prescott was engaged in conversation with Malfoy; Gwen Fisher and Pansy Parkinson were sharing an armchair and talking thickly. The uniformity of expression was remarkable: the seniors were doing most of the talking and smiling, the first-years were sporting frowns and looking perplexed.

 _First hazing and now fagging,_ he thought. _Never let it be said that the Slytherin House isn't strong on tradition_.

"And I have been assigned to you."

Taran nodded.

"I see. What do teachers think of this… tutoring?" He glanced at the older boy and saw his lips curl in a knowing smile.

"It's funny you should ask. The practice had nearly fallen out of fashion before Professor Snape reinstated it. He picks tutors personally," and Harry tensed visibly at that last part. But Taran didn't, or pretended not to, notice. "First year is quite peculiar this year, isn't it? I understand you were raised the Muggle way, just like me."

"You're a Muggleborn, then?"

Taran's dark eyebrows arched. "Would I be in Slytherin then? Ah, but I might as well be. My mother was a witch, but she... dropped out of practice when she was very young. My father's a Muggle... a number cruncher for insurance companies."

Harry had a hunch that there was more, but what had been said would have to suffice for the moment.

"So, what am I supposed to do?"

"Nothing much, really. For your luck, I don't play Quidditch, and neither, heaven forbid, _Gobstones_. I'll have some errands for you, mainly fetching books from the library – I'm involved in an extra project this year. For my part, if you have trouble with lessons, or if someone gives you grief, just come to me."

"Well, it's funny, because someone's just given me grief for a solid week. Is there anything you can do about it?"

Taran sighed, and sipped his drink staring at the wall behind Harry. "I'll just repeat to you what was told to me. Slytherin never agreed to the Sorting system. It was imposed from without. It has nothing to do with what the House is about."

"Uh-uh," Harry said. "It's about taking it ou.."

The older boy raised a hand. "Indulge me, all right? It is about composure, it's about restraint, and seizing the perfect opportunity when it presents itself. All of which you did in an outstanding manner. When first-years are Sorted, they don't know what to expect: they listen to the welcome speech, then they end up in Slytherin and find out the harsh reality. The hazing... it's a concentrate of the worst you can expect. And it is within Slytherin. 'In a controlled environment', as Muggles would say. So even if you eventually lose it, you don't lose it in front of the entire school."

Harry, who had lost count of the times Malfoy had lost it in front of the entire school, said: "I'm not buying it, you know."

"Well then. There's more. How do you get along with your dorm mates?"

"That's neither here not there."

"Then you're either very dumb or a veritable lone wolf. What is coal?"

"What you get from Santa when you've been naughty."

Taran chuckled. "The actual answer."

"Well um, mostly carbon, I guess."

"Yes, it is. But so are diamonds. What makes diamonds out of coal?"

 _Is this conversation going anywhere?_ Harry wondered. "Uh, I dunno... time?"

" _Pressure_ actually. That's the purpose. You were forced together, pressure applied, and now you share a tighter bond. Do you think this would be necessary in Hufflepuff, for example?

"So you just give aggro to a bunch of kids just outside of home, until they somehow collapse into a fighting unit?" That's just..." Harry said, then he stopped.

_That's just the kind of thing Dumbledore would do. Did. Fuck. Sorted too soon, indeed._

Meanwhile, Taran was reassuring him. "The hazing lasts for a week. Tomorrow would have been the day of your induction ceremony."

"Which involves... Wait, do I even want to know?"

"The induction helps those who waver to unwind into spiritual and intellectual growth... shed your previous skin, awake your inner snake and embrace the Slytherin identity. But as you see, it is seldom necessary. You've shown your worth."

Harry, already slightly intoxicated, pondered on what those words would translate into, once the juices and the alcohol started flowing. "Forgive me for being rather direct, but it doesn't sound like my idea of fun."

"And yet the ones who underwent the ceremony are strongly in favour of keeping the tradition."

"I think I know all that I want to know now. Just one more thing, does Snape know about this? The hazing?"

Taran smiled. "You've been here for just a week, otherwise you wouldn't ask. There is nothing that the man doesn't know."

* * *

Later in bed, fighting the onset of a massive hangover (courtesy of two shots of seven-year-old mead and his own eleven-year-old liver, Merlin, those seniors were _criminals_ ), Harry pondered the events of the day. He didn't think it likely that the Malfoy in his previous life had ever shed his previous identity or embraced a snake, metaphorically or otherwise: that cockyness hadn't been shattered until much later. So had he and the others turned the table on the seniors somehow? And how, without Harry as a catalyst? Perhaps Snape had passed words that the seniors would just have let it slide for once.

Well there was always Zabini. Maybe he had brought one of his mother's strychnine-laced cakes and terrified the House into leaving the firsties alone.

Whatever the means, Harry's routine was turned on its ear. The pranks ceased at once. Senior Slytherins would acknowledge their existence with an indolent wave as they crossed in corridors, and offer help with homework when asked (although something had to be offered in return, be it handwriting the fine copy of a hastily scribbled essay or a sample from Harry's quickly dwindling supply of Chocolate Frogs).

Harry was amazed: his Housemates were even more pleasant on the eye now they weren't actively snarling at him. His troubles with the senior students having been resolved, Harry was left with just his Head of House to deal with.

That, and his failed friends.

Looking at the Gryffindors across the Great Hall or the Potions dungeon unvariably made his heart sink. Neville, unsurprisingly, was the odd man out; Hermione was the twitchy ghost of herself, and that was understandable, given what her first month in Hogwarts had been. But Ron, who seemed to get along fine with the other first-years, simply looked away from Harry each time they happened to be in the same room. And Harry felt like he was letting them down.

When this happened, he took a few breaths and repeat to himself, like a lullaby, _It's not about me. Not about me._

He would rather have Ron refusing to acknowledge his presence and live to tell the tale, than being on the run for years, only to end up hastily buried under a heap of rocks in the woods because of his misplaced loyalty to the Boy Who Screwed Up. And Neville... if it had been at all possible, Harry would have locked up Neville in a Gringott's vault, under armed guard.

Still, the rejection stung every time, especially when compared against his old memories. It was like being an amputee, and trying to grab something with a hand you no longer had.

That would have to be rectified as soon as practical, Harry mused, as he played wizard's chess with Nott while Crabbe and Goyle did push-ups on the floor, waiting for Malfoy to finish his essay so they could copy it.

He would cast a perfect spell from the get-go, regain some points, and establish himself as first-class wizarding material among his skeptical Housemates and beyond.

* * *

_Next: All flights cancelled._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you familiar with the novel "The Masters of Discipline" will have recognized the first years' prank. I could not come up with anything better.


End file.
